Musings of a Misfit Artist

2006-02-20T17:08:00.000-08:00

It's been sometime since I posted- mucho transpiring-iendo.

This post was written while on a Chinese flight from Australia to Shanghai to Los Angeles. I don' think it's finished but I wanted to make sure it finally arrived at it's home.

DJC

********

HOME, BY WAY OF CHINA

I am writing this at 38,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean in a Chinese jet airplane!

A few weeks ago, I made a big decision. I chose to end my residency in Australia and return to the United States.

Many factors played a part in this decision, and I can assure you this was an agonizing decision. I am not ashamed to admit I cried a river of tears, and had to force myself to do what I felt was ultimately best, despite my undying love for the country of Australia. Read that again- I had to FORCE myself to take this action. I had to make myself do something I didn’t want to do, because logic, not my feelings, dictated it was the better action. I had to ignore the frantic messages the emotional center of my brain was sending to me and take action on logical deductions, not matter how powerful the emotional input was to the contrary. While I am an intelligent person, I am find that one of my gifts is to respond to emotional “hints” my mind gives me, and this strategy has been winner in the past. Recently I decided that I had become unbalanced in this process, and was obeying the emotional, impulsive part of my brain over logic, and needed to dig deeper in the decision making process of my life lest I meet a tragic end.

The process of moving the assets of Mydnyte Productions back to the United States was a learning experience unto itself. Not only did the fragile recording studio gear need to be packed expertly to protect from damage, I faced the challenge of packing my materials in one-meter cubes. Budget constrictions mandated me to approximately 2 cubic meters of space. The problem is that some of the gear, in their respective flight cases, exceed one meter. My keyboard case alone is 1.3 meters. There is no way to fit this into a one meter cube.

The end result? They never told me that I could continue to build vertically! I had a 2 cubic meter mass that was 2 meters tall, by one meter, by one meter.

FLYING AWAY

After the gear was sent off in the ship, I made my move to fly back to the states. I had the opportunity to fly JAL and spend one night in Tokyo, and I regret that I did not take it because in the end, I eventually had to accept a 22 layover in Shanghai, China.

Arriving in China and being faced with the fact that I was to be there almost a full day, I had to make a decision whether to try and stay in the airport for that time, or get a hotel room. I eventually decided to press my luck and get a hotel room.

Now, this may sound like an easy task- but try going off in a country where NO-ONE speaks English, where the ATM won’t take your card, where ALL of the signs are in Chinese, and the currency and value of the money is radically different to what you are used to. Try discussing the price of a room, not to mention how to get to the hotel room itself. It wasn’t easy I assure you.

You have to understand I never dreamed I would be in China. I knew I needed to make a connecting flight, but rubbing elbows with the locals in rural Shanghai wasn’t something I planned on. I went to Hong Kong and had an 11 hour layover once, but I never left the airport. I wonder, if you never leave the airport, have you really been to that place? Well now I don’t need to worry: I have left the airport and went to China.

2005-09-27T06:21:00.000-07:00

What pisses me off

Do you know what I hate? I hate when a website, supposedly in the business of providing searches and resources for people looking for employment list jobs that aren’t really jobs.

For instance:

JOB DESCRIPTION:

Position:
Video Segment Production.
An on-line Internship.

Position Overview:
Telecommuting positions available. If you seek a break into the
publishing or entertainment industry this is it. Our Special Media Unit
is seeking capable, multi-tasking video production candidates to
produce simple 'talking head' segments for a new web-series. If you
can perform basic production tasks on your own, scout talent and
telecommute using e-mail you can earn internship credit and gain a
solid production career advantage.

This is not a job, it’s an INTERNSHIP. Do you know what that means? It means it either doesn’t pay, or YOU need to PAY THEM to gain the experience. It’s a sham, and pisses me off when I am out there looking for a job and one of these babies come up in the search.

As a film composer, there is no shortage of people that want me to work for them for free. I am not lacking in that regard. When I go to monster.com, or jobseek.com.au, I am looking for EMPLOYMENT, not yet another way to waste my life. I have plenty of those as well.

Do you know what else pisses me off?

That fucking crazy frog cell phone ring tone. If you have that on your phone you are a Class-A wanker.

Another thing that pisses me off is people that say Brittany Spears or Justin Timberlake are musicians. If that irony isn’t self-explanatory to you, then you obviously think tehse people are musicians, and that makes you a Class-A wanker.

Another thing that pisses me off: Bank Overdraft Fees

Why, when you bounce a check, does the bank charge you more of something they already know you don’t have?

Does a bankruptcy lawyer really expect to get paid?

(Thank you Galagher)

That is all for now, you may resume your lives.

2005-09-25T02:47:00.000-07:00

KATRINA EXPOSES AMERICAN POVERTY

By MARTHA MENDOZA, AP National Writer Sat Sep 24,12:26 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO - "Let me tell you about abandoned people," whispered J.R., his voice rising above the sighs and soft snores of sleepers curled on the church pews around him.

"Those people who were abandoned in New Orleans," he said, "they were abandoned long before that hurricane hit. We all were."

J.R. (he gave no other name) spends his days with 100 others, embraced in the holy warmth of a magnificent edifice, 103-year-old St. Boniface Church. Sunlight streams through stained glass and gilded saints smile down upon them from the domed ceilings; the smells of their sour, acrid clothes and bodies mix with the lingering scent of incense.

This looks like an evacuation center — row after row of desperate people and their sparse belongings, a backpack here, a blanket there.

But this roomful of displaced people is neither an emergency shelter nor a temporary situation.

This is an ongoing, daily, chronic disaster.

Ordinarily the faces of America's poor are as hidden as their stories. But Hurricane Katrina has spotlighted the deep poverty that this country has failed to solve, a world of people who live without Social Security numbers and without running water, people who are too poor to shop at Wal-Mart and whose children go hungry.

Even as the economy strengthened in 2004, Census Bureau figures show 37 million Americans lived under the poverty line, a jump of 1.1 million from 2003. People living in poverty have, in fact, been increasing steadily in this country since 2001.

For years, advocacy groups and researchers have shouted the statistics: 45.8 million people don't have health insurance; 25 percent of American's blacks (and 44 percent of Houston's) live in poverty; 36 million Americans are hungry or at risk of hunger.

But before Katrina, few wanted to hear any of this, says Reese Fayde, head of Living Cities, a New York-based nonprofit group.

"You are made to feel you are detracting from something good, that you're not patriotic, that you're trying to focus on a niche issue," she said. "Poverty didn't happen overnight, but now it's as if someone lifted up a rock and wow, there they are, all those poor people!"

Rev. Cecil Williams, a veteran social activist who leads San Francisco's Glide Memorial Church, said he keeps getting calls from people who say: "'Not only did we not know there was so much poverty, but also that so many of these poor people were black.'"

It's frustrating, said Williams. "We've been there all along."

But in many cases, poverty is "invisible," said Rosemary Cubas, who lives in one of Philadelphia's poorest neighborhoods. She said that on her block, four or five families share one-bedroom apartments.

"You don't see our poor because we don't let them sleep on park benches or homeless shelters. We just squeeze in, and everyone is overcrowded and underfed."

For those who have been living in poverty, and those who have been trying to fight it, the current air of surprise about this chronic disaster is both frustrating and amusing. For some it's also, perhaps, a glimmer of hope.

"I do wonder whether this is one of those moments where, as this country reflects on its values, there's an opportunity for change, for movement," said Olivia Golden, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington D.C.

The country could put Katrina behind it and move forward as if nothing happened, said Omowale Satterwhite of the Oakland, Calif.-based National Community Development Institute.

"The other possibility is that the soul of the country gets touched and the entire country is in a dialogue, trying to discover a common truth about who we are and who we want to be," he said.

Not that poverty is a new topic of discussion in America.

The first almhouses, or poorhouses, were built by the few prosperous colonialists 300 years ago "to abate the public nuisance" of impoverished early settlers. Periodic reforms were attempted, but they mostly amounted to handouts from both the private and public sector. Poor people became an intractable — and often overlooked — problem.

The Depression brought the problem to the forefront, and underscored the American tendency to look away from the poor. In the 1936 movie "My Man Godfrey," Irene, played by actress Carole Lombard, is engaged in a society scavenger hunt and is looking for "a forgotten man." She finds Godfrey, a bum played by William Powell, living on an ash heap.

Godfrey: "Do you mind telling me just what a scavenger hunt is?"

Irene: "Well, a scavenger hunt is exactly like a treasure hunt, except in a treasure hunt you try to find something you want and in a scavenger hunt, you try to find something that nobody wants."

Godfrey: "Hmmm, like a forgotten man?"

It wasn't until the riots of the 1960s that the nation made it's first real attempt to eradicate the problem. A federal commission tasked with finding the source of the unrest found that "chronic poverty is a breeder of chronic chaos."

In response, President Johnson declared war on poverty.

The government focused on health care, housing and food for seniors, disabled people and children. There was also a national Job Corps and a new Office of Economic Opportunity. The Model Cities program — which later became Community Development Block Grants — streamlined federal funds to community groups providing everything from low-income housing to dental care. Sargent Shriver was named chief of staff for the war against poverty.

"They were trying to get at the root causes of poverty, and the root causes were, as we felt it to be, lack of educational opportunity and lack of job training," said former White House deputy counsel Larry Levinson, who was enlisted in the war on poverty by Johnson in 1964. "All of this was not writing checks to poor people, it was offering them the skills and education."

William Julius Wilson, who directs the Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program at Harvard University, said Johnson's war "was the first major initiative to address poverty, and the last. There hasn't been anything like that since."

Initially, poverty declined and programs flourished. But each new administration dismantled pieces of Johnson's vision, which soon was criticized for costing too much and doing too little.

By the 1980s, the 'War on Poverty' was seen, by some, as a joke.

President Reagan drew laughter at his 1988 State of the Union address when he said: "My friends, some years ago, the federal government declared war on poverty, and poverty won."

He went on to decry 59 major welfare programs and the $100 billion a year spent on them.

"What has all this money done? Well, too often it has only made poverty harder to escape. Federal welfare programs have created a massive social problem. With the best of intentions, government created a poverty trap that wreaks havoc on the very support system the poor need most to lift themselves out of poverty."

Reagan's idea was to spend welfare funds on education and training. President Clinton, who led a "poverty tour" from Hazard, Ky., to Watts in Los Angeles, revamped welfare programs; as the economy soared, poverty levels decreased during each of his years in office to a 26-year low.

Since George W. Bush took office, poverty — and the concentration of wealth in fewer hands — has steadily increased.

"In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy of our nation's promise," Bush said, in his first inaugural address.

After Hurricane Katrina, Bush made the same point, this time noting the racial consequences.

"As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well," he said. "And that poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action."

So far, he has proposed action only in the area hit by Katrina, calling for a Gulf Opportunity Zone to provide tax breaks for companies that offer jobs, and a lottery-based homesteading program to help poor families own, rather than rent, their homes.

Alexander Keyssar, who teaches the history of poverty at Harvard University, said this country is no longer even trying to solve the larger problems.

"Thirty years ago, there was still a belief in this country that you could eradicate poverty," he said. "I think any sense of optimism or confidence that we can solve the problem has eroded."

That said, his courses are still popular, and his students are determined.

"Students approach poverty out of impulse, goodwill and a desire to do something," he said.

There's certainly plenty to do.

The raw, inner city poverty of New Orleans can be found in most major cities, from New York's Harlem — where a one-in-50 infant-mortality rate is comparable to Sri Lanka's — to southern Dallas, where crime rates are twice as high as the rest of the city.

Rural poverty is less obvious but just as intractable.

In the colonias of southern Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, you'll find tarpaper shacks, dirt roads, outhouses, unbathed school children.

People live like this not by the thousands but by the hundreds of thousands, supporting families on $5,000 a year in homes four times as crowded as the national average. Almost all of the residents are Hispanic, and most — 85 percent, federal officials say — are U.S. citizens.

State and federal authorities have warned that many colonias, built in unprotected flood plains, would be washed away in a major deluge.

"I hope Katrina is drawing awareness to our situation," said Meggan Snedden at the Colonias Development Council in Las Cruces, N.M. "In an emergency, our people don't have a way to leave the community and nowhere to go to. There are no options. People are living here day to day, with no contingency plans."

In Appalachia, a region where poverty is so entrenched, so intractable and so pervasive it is almost a cliche, many residents still live in century-old coal camp box houses, built to be temporary out of flimsy boards and battens.

The poverty in this region has been "discovered" again and again, and promises to pull residents out of poverty have been made for more than a century. During the Civil War, when thousands of Appalachians were driven from their homes in the mountains, President Lincoln promised he would come to their aid.

"The folks we work with don't really see they have a future, and as a consequence they live day by day," said John David, who directs the Southern Appalachia Labor School in Kincaid, W.Va.

Some Appalachian residents have continuous yard sales, their only hope of making money lies in selling one of their possessions. Many more spend the entire year paying off their winter heating bills, which top $500 a month because their homes lack insulation.

"I think the normal person would be shocked at what our daily existence is like," said Norman DePover, 50, who spends his days sleeping in the San Francisco church. "Just trying to find a bathroom, something to eat, to get a shower and stay warm, those are my problems."

Denita Jacox, a social worker at the Lessie Bates Neighborhood House in impoverished East St. Louis, said the general public has no idea what her clients are up against.

"This is a depressed community. Our families can't afford to shop at Wal-Mart. In the winter they can't pay their utility bills and they are very, very cold."

Nancy Cantor of Scottsdale, Ariz., who lives on about $12,000 a year, said rationing food is a way of life.

"Peanut butter and jelly is good. A can of soup. At the end of the month you cross your fingers and hold your breath," she said.

"We hurried up and made room in the shelters for all of the people who were made homeless by Katrina, yet we have people in this country who have lived for years, not knowing if they are going to survive the heat and cold."

At St. Boniface Church, J.R. pulled a knit blanket tight around his shoulders and considered his role in this country. Is he hidden? How did he get here? Why does he stay?

"This is a capitalist society," he said with all of the pedantic patience of a social scientist. "Capitalism means some people get richer and some people get poorer. In order for this system to work, for there to be really wealthy folks, you've got to have me at the bottom."

He pulled a knit blanket onto his lap and prepares to curl back up on his pew.

"This abandoning," he said, looking around the quiet church, "it was planned from the beginning."

2005-09-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

King Of The iPods Calls Record Labels Greedy

Friday September 23, 2005 @ 04:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

When it comes to the business world, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is no newcomer to the public bitch-slap. According to Associated Press, Jobs gave the record industry a stern talking to earlier this week, telling attendees at the Apple Expo in Paris that the major labels were angling to increase the cost of iTunes downloads when their current contracts with the online service ended.

The Applehead isn’t the only one baffled by this move. An across-the-board fee of 99 cents per song has been one of iTunes' biggest draws, convincing millions of online music pirates to live a more law-abiding life. Meanwhile, the labels aren't exactly losing money on the deal, since their chunk of that 99 cents is more than they would make selling a physical CD — what with no manufacturing, storage or shipping costs and less marketing needed.

Realistically, raising the price (which some users already say is too high) can only push customers away, hurting their revenue — the same effect labels saw when CD prices were on a perpetual rise up until the last couple of years. Jobs said the request for a hike "just means they're getting a little greedy." Contracts nearing expiration include those with Sony BMG and Warner.

"Customers think the price is really good where it is," he told the audience. "We're trying to compete with piracy — we're trying to pull people away from piracy and say, 'You can buy these songs legally for a fair price.' But if the price goes up a lot, they'll go back to piracy. Then everybody loses."

Unfortunately, while Jobs may totally be in the right about the record labels' wrong, he also has a business interest in keeping the download price under a buck, catapulting him from the moral high ground. See, its Jobs' job to sell these little things called iPods, about 22 million of them so far, to be exact. It made him about $6-billion U.S., not counting any iTunes profits. You know, iTunes? Which now owns the American legal download market, taking up 82 per cent of it and selling over 500 million songs since its 2003 debut.

An anonymous record label exec told MTV News that the standard price allowed Jobs to "become the Wal-Mart of the internet and he wants to retain that monopoly." The source said the labels simply want the option of variable pricing — an industry norm that basically means charging more money for currently popular music.

The source praised Jobs for spurring a legitimate download market, but said the Apple boss sold his hardware "on the back of our content," and pointed out that Jobs himself has the right and opportunity to adjust the prices of his iPod hardware.

—David McDougall

2005-09-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

iTunes Cell Phones??

When Apple announced the release of the new iTunes compatible cell phone it confirmed for many people what they had been suspecting for some time. Rumors had been buzzing around the net for a while about an impending release of a new mp3 player technology, and many surmised (correctly) that apple was about to release a cell phone capable of downloading and playing songs from the iTunes music store. Furthermore it was rumored that a special version of iTunes would be released for this phone. These rumors turned out to be true.

When I heard about it I was less than excited. Here in Australia everyone’s got these great phones that do everything from video to pocket pc. I’ve seen mp3 players in phones cameras, video games, GPS, Internet, and more. I even had a Kyocera Smart Phone that had a Palm Pilot in it for a while.

These days, I couldn’t care less about mobile phone technology. I need my phone to make a receive telephone calls, and I do rely on the SMS capability quite a bit. My phone is for calling people, and outside of that I do not need something that can remote control my car, or communicate with the Space Shuttle. All I need is calls, SMS, and that’s about it. I don’t care about stereo ringtones or decorative wallpaper displays. Does it ring when people call? Can you hear people on it? Can they hear you? Then it’s a good phone.

I don’t need a mobile phone that has an mp3 player in it. That’s why I have an iPod. Sometimes I miss calls on my phone because I have the iPod on too loud and can’t hear or feel the ringer. I think that’s great. If I had my iPod in a phone, then it would interrupt my sole source of relaxation and isolation and I would have to take those calls. I don’t like the fact that people expect you to answer the phone like a trained Pavlovian dog. Sometimes at home I let the phone ring and I won’t answer it, content to let the machine get it. It drives my friends crazy and they want to answer it for me because I wont. I really couldn’t care less. Same with email. I have email on my computer. If need be I have a laptop and can connect via the wireless network at school. That’s good enough for me- I don’t need to be contactable 100% of the time, 24/7. That just spoils other people, and they get upset when they cannot get a hold of you.

The other thing I really don’t like is this idea of “planned obsolescence”.

When I was a kid, my grandfather took me out to his tool shed. He showed me a saw he had for over 60 years. He still used it and it looked as new on that day as it did the day he bought it. It occurred to me that they don’t make tools like that anymore. These companies are interested in finding ways to make you buy things that you have already bought.

Take for example computer companies- if they made a computer that lasted 60 years they wouldn’t make any money. Everyone would buy one, and then you’d be set. After they sold everyone a computer they would have to go into some other business. These companies sit around and ask questions like “How can we make people buy these things again that they have already bought?” Hence planned obsolescence. I bought my new G5 Mac in January and by March they had replaced my line with a newer faster computer. 3 months, that’s all it took. I bought the Logic Audio software at the same time and by February they already had an upgrade that cost $30 to get. These companies want to sell you the same item two and three times over. What a great racket! You spend $2000-3000 on a new computer every year or every other year, sometimes, like in my case, you have two or three computers. Then there’s the software upgrades. I got the latest Finale upgrade (software that lets me do professional music sheet music notation) in January as well. They called it “Finale 2005”. In March they came out with “Finale 2006”. Is it just me, or is this thing getting a little out of hand?

I know no one wants a 60 year old computer, but let’s say for the sake of this argument that if they could build a computer that was just as powerful and fast 60 years after you bought it, wouldn’t you consider buying it? Never in a million years, even if they could, would they produce such a unit. It isn’t profitable enough for them.

In this day and age corporations are out to make billions upon billions and top record profit margins, so they want you buy a new cell phone every year, and a new computer and a new car, and a new TV and a new video player unit (now it’s DVD, but soon it will be something like an iPod,..Let’s call it a vPod- you’ll just take it to the video store, plug it into a kiosk and download the movie you want to watch and you wont need to take the movie back to the store- it will just expire after a certain amount of time and the file will delete itself). The list is endless. It’s this great curve that just keeps building and building and building. It’s unbelievable the amount of money that people are spending on technology and the curve just keeps increasing.

But it keeps us willing to be “happy little drone workers” now doesn’t it? We freely indenture ourselves into servitude for this never ending stream of luxury that just gets more and more expensive. We commit ourselves into willing slavery to pursue the latest and greatest technology, which is priced just-out-of-reach, but not completely. It keeps us working and willing to slave for the profiteers, because people can’t just roll into some faraway nation now and enslave people as their servants anymore. These days, they need your permission, but it’s still the same concept.

So, you can see why I am happy with my little piece of shit Nokia cell phone. I can hear people on it, they can hear me, and I can send and receive text messages. That’s all I need.

2005-09-07T04:20:00.000-07:00

NEW ORLEANS SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

Being an American and living in Australia is far from easy street. Before I moved to Australia I thought that Australians generally liked Americans. For the most part they do- but not completely.

Australians live in the shadow of the U.S. Through the Marshall act Aussies are required to broadcast 60% American content on their televisions stations. They see American culture constantly, wear American fashions, watch American movies, but when they try to export their culture to America, we snub it. So heavily taxed and tarried are Australian imports to America that most of it never gets off the dock. Why bother? The resulting price would be so high who will buy it?

I work in the Australian film community. YES there IS an Australian film community. Aussies actually make great films, and are what I would consider a savy tech-nation. It’s doubtful that the average American will ever see any of the Aussie films though, as America turns its gaze inward, whereas Australia is always looking outward. American is content with gazing at itself in the mirror where as Aussies are forced to have American culture rammed down their throat. The free trade agreement saw to that. Australian films have virtually no chance of getting large scale cinema distribution in our country, which si a shame actually because Australian culture is amazing.

The resentment Australians feel toward America stems from many sources. Some of it, strangely enough, dates back to World War II. I’m not sure I completely understand it, but it has something to do with American servicemen coming to Australia during war-time while the Aussie male population was off to war, and married away all the Aussie brides. I’m not sure I completely understand that one though.

Australia does, however, harbor a great deal of resentment regarding the gulf war and continuing hostilities with Iraq and Afghanistan. The Australian Prime Minister John Howard is perceived to be the lap dog of George W. Bush and in Americas pocket. The Australian people do not want to be engaged in this conflict and it is a common assertion that I hear John Howard does not represent the will of the people.

As a student I am exposed to people from all over the world. I have been here many years, and have heard many an Anti-American statement. As world news gets worse and worse, and Gasoline process soar above $3 a litre (YES I said LITRE, NOT GALLONS- CONSIDER THAT!!) Our allies in Iraq and Afghanistan pay more for their petroleum products, so WE don’t have to. Resentment for America grows and grows. I hear bad things about my country constantly. I spend a great deal of time defending my country, for better or worse.

Then when I see things in the news like I did about the flooding in New Orleans and the rape gangs, people shooting at rescue helicopters, looting, and lack of federal assistance to victims I wonder why I bother defending my country at all.

Here was a problem waiting to happen that could have been avoided. New Orleans had been warning the federal government of this impending disaster for years. The levee problem had been assessed a long time ago. Still, budget cuts came and warnings went unheeded. Nothing was done.

And even after this disaster happened, the American federal government was slow to respond. Instead of relief, what the victims get is “spin”. This disaster is no small problem, this is a disaster on an EPIC SCALE. A disaster that again, (like 9/11) could have been avoided.

And how ugly were the looters and thugs running around? One of the worst natural disasters to have ever happened on American soil and all these people can think of is going out and taking other peoples “stuff”. Perhaps this is one of the biggest problems with American culture- the rampant and rapacious zeal for capitalism and greed, acquiring more and more material possessions. We are bred for it. It is drilled into us on a base level.

I’m not making excuses for these people, but this is what people do when they get to the end of their rope. The racial division in that city is wide, as is the socio-economic differences. When you have people driving Ferrari’s past people who can’t afford to eat but once every other day, eventually this kind of backlash is going to happen.

I am disgusted more by the American governments failure to respond in a timely fashion. This is the very reason why the Homeland Protection Act came into existence, and there is simply no good reason for the lack of response. Why this failure? Because the threat wasn’t from a terrorist group? This single action (or lack thereof) speaks volumes about the true motivation of the American government.

What has happened is terrible. It is almost of biblical proportions. I think it amazing that a disaster on the scale of 9/11 has failed to warrant the compassion and response by the government, or the government agencies designed to deal with such tradgedies- namely FEMA and The Homeland Security Office. Disgusting.

Many Australians perceive us as crazy, gun toting maniacs with a crime rate like something out of a science fiction movie. When they see this in their newspapers it is hard to convince them otherwise. Still more say we “had it coming”.

I don’t know about that, but I am personally very embarrassed and ashamed of the way the people of my country behaved, as well as how the government itself failed to behave. It’s hard to convince Australians that we aren’t a hopeless case when you see the images of looters raging in the street, and hear the stores of gunmen holding up pharmaceutical truck deliveries, or shooting at rescue helicopters. It’s hard to convince Australians of our sincerity in the Mid-East when the American Government cannot even come to the rescue of its own people when they are drowning. It’s hard to take George Bush seriously when he spins the blame without taking responsibility.

Were not headed in a good direction. Rome will burn eventually. It’s only a matter of time.

2005-09-01T22:07:00.000-07:00

THE OLDER YOU GET,…

The older you get, the faster the speed of time goes. It accelerates on a curve. When you were 9 years old summer vacation from school seemed like an eternity. When you were 10 you thought back half your life and that seemed like ages ago. Now I’m 38 and months pass like weeks, weeks pass like days, and days pass like hours. It just keeps speeding up and I can never seem to get anything done. I can think back half my life now and it’s 20 years, which seems like yesterday.

I have been so busy that I panic sometimes- how will I ever finish this stuff. The Ph.D. is killing me and I am stressed. I have a film on the table to compose music for, multitudes of problems, some audio work for my business and I just don’t have time for any of it, not to mention my pursuits of pleasure or interest: I have 4-6 music compositions I am writing just for the fun of it- I may never finish them. My to-do list just keeps growing. It’s insane.

I also find that I am in doubt whether I want to continue living in Australia or return home to the U.S. I am seriously considering moving to Los Angeles and “taking a swim with the sharks”. I am thinking of plunging into the music for film market in the heat of the action- that melee that is called “Los Angeles”. At this point I wonder if my Ph.D. studies is taking me closer or farther away from what I really want to do- compose music for motion pictures. All I want to do now is DO. All I want to do is engage in the practice. Fuck theory.

2005-08-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - Hunter S. Thompson

2005-08-23T01:13:00.000-07:00

Mac OS X For Intel Hacked, Runs On Any PC

Fri Aug 12, 1:42 PM ET
Mac enthusiast sites reported Friday that Apple Computer's operating system for Intel-based computers, which is currently in the hands of developers, has both been leaked to the Internet and cracked so that it will run on non-Apple hardware.

In early June, Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs announced that starting in 2006, the company's Macintoshes will be equipped with Intel microprocessors rather than the current PowerPC chips produced by IBM.

Although Apple has been vague about whether other operating systems -- such as Microsoft's Windows -- will run on the new hardware (it has, however, said it will not sell or support other OSes), it was adamant about preventing its own Mac OS X from running on non-Apple computers.

That may be more difficult than Apple thought.

Several sites reported this week that crackers had managed to install the developer-issued version of Mac OS X for Intel on non-Apple machines, including Dell laptops. One site has posted video purportedly of Mac OS X booting on a non-Apple-approved Intel-based PC.

Another site, dubbed OSx86 Project and dedicated to the new OS from Apple, noted that OS X for Intel can be installed under VMware's virtual machine software, and that a disk image of the OS has been posted on several BitTorrent sites.

The crack supposedly bypasses Intel's Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip that was intended to prevent the operating system from running on non-Apple boxes. The digital rights management chip, which is supported in the new Mac OS's kernel, is Apple's attempt to tie the operating system to its own hardware; Mac OS X for Intel shouldn't install to PCs without the TPM chip.

Apple did not immediately return a call asking for comment.

2005-08-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Someone explain Courtney Love to me

It always amazes me how such a dreadful person, resplendent in every form of debauchery you can partake of, can rise to such heights or prosperity and status.

No one I know likes Courtney. I remember her from her troll Seattle days when she used to walk the streets of Seattle and do the same outrageous shit, only thenit at leastwarranted a call to the police. They may not have arrested her, but at least they made some effort to discourage her. Who would have thought that the world would tolerate such behaviour for so long, and reward her so richly for talent she doesn't have. Sent to rehab? Too good for you Courtney if you ask me. You shoulda' went to jail.

It's funny how times change- y'know? It's amazing how someone who could stand on top of David Letterman's desk and pull her shirt up and reveal her breasts could be so revered as some sort of alternative music genius. In my day, being a musical genius meant you actually had to write and perform music. She can barely sing, much less play the guitar.

How exactly did she get to this superstar status, except of course by being an opportunist bitch that took advantage of her junkie husbands death? If I were married to Courtney Love I would have pulled the trigger too.

Dr. Jonas Salk.... Remember him? He cured Polio. He died penniless, yet this junkie can hit people in the head with microphone stands, or assault people when ever she chooses with no fear of reprisal. The courts tolerate it, the media glamourizes it, and the people eat it up. Still the $$ rolls in. Pathetic really.

The very fact that she is a media icon is a sure symptom of the fragmentation and degredation of American civil values.

I for one have no sympathy for Courtney. They should have put her child into foster care years ago. I always wonder how the world can just sit and watch this stuff as if it is high entertainment.

2005-08-18T05:31:00.000-07:00

The Lost Art of Progressive Rock, and modern “Anti-music”.

Lately I have been spending a lot of time reviewing music on Garageband.com. It’s enjoyable, and it has been invaluable in teaching me how to speak critically about music and speak using the lexicon of a music-educator. In that my Ph.D. is basically about training me to write books, I am spending more and more time writing about just about everything.

One of my favorite styles of music is progressive rock. I’ve been a progressive rock fan for many years, my fandom dating back to high school. Lately I have come to realize that the genre of progressive rock is an all but forgotten notion. It’s a lost art, existing somewhere in the receding depths of time, growing fainter and fainter all the time. Ask the average 13 yr old who Alex Lifeson was, and you’ll watch him stare blankly with no idea of what you are talking about. Ask him the lyrics to the latest Eminem tune and I bet he’ll start rappin’ for ya’.

As I sift thru the multitudes of submissions of Garageband.com, I have come to realize that many are mis-categorized. Country music artists are dropping their tunes into classical music, Punk rockers are dropping their stuff into country, and blues is encountered in every genre. Progressive rock is no different, and sometimes I wonder what compels these individuals to think their music belongs in progressive rock.

Progressive rock is hard to classify. Everyone that has a slight time change or odd time signature considers his or her music progressive- but does it involve "progress"? Does it move the art form of music forward? Does it dash boundaries or teach us anything? Does it defy formula or convention? Is it clever? Is it intelligent? Does it make you think? Does it rock? Progressive rock is at best a delicate balance of a great many things.

In truth I do not know if there is any defining trait to what classifies as progressive rock. In the past progressive bands have used odd time signatures, a wide and varied palate of acoustic and electronic orchestration, singers with high, clear voices, deep lyrical content, intense virtuoso musicianship, conceptual themes, and an almost anti-establishment stance towards commercial conformity, .. but are these the defining principles of Progressive Rock? Are these truly precedents or are they merely historical markers?

Somehow I feel that that which is truly progressive abhors definition. The cutting edge of the blade has no guide, but the hilt is always a follower.

In this day and age progress seems almost a subjective term, meaning many different things to many different people. One persons progress is another persons quaint belief. Still others find progress threatening, and recoil from any idea that challenges them to look critically at what they had believed to be truth. To be truly progressive requires a degree of altruism that has always been a rare trait among people- no less so today. This is why progressive rock doesn't knock bubble gum rockers like Britney Spears off the charts, even though we all know that Britney couldn't even spell the word "music" if she tried. This is why formulaic music has become for most of the public, their daily vitamin.

So when a young band decides to embark upon the path of a progressive rocker, I am always at first a little skeptical- do they know what this entails? Do they have dreams of avarice and believe they can change the musical audience of the world? Are they truly progressive or do they just like the sound of it and pin it to their lapel for lack of a better buzz-word? More often this is the case.

The lessons of progressive rock have been largely forgotten to time and replaced with anti-socialistic rock that purposely acts in a manner contrary to that of established norms. Clean guitar tones are distorted to clipping tones; Snare drums are torqued until they ping like a garbage can lid. All that which is considered desirable is thrown out as trash and what was considered trash is embraced as desirable. Singing in tune is considered quaint, singing into a harmonizer par for the course. The age of the guitar hero is long forgotten and that garage band sound we all fought to purge ourselves of in favour of becoming seasoned professional virtuosos is now the mandatory sound. Doing that studio take "good enough" is great. Being polished and practised- undesirable. Being wild enough to do crazy acts of headlining news- priceless.

I suppose to some this is progress. It certainly breaks trends and shakes up the tree. It certainly doesn't conform to commercial convention! This is of course initially- until the anti-establishment becomes that which they attempt to destroy. The sound becomes mainstay and then the labels begin stamping it out in neatly packaged squares. "Music must have that-suck factor or it just isn't viable" They say. At no other time in history has it been possible for an artist to be rewarded so well for sucking so hard.

Sing? Forget that- Ill recite spoken word rhyme over loops of some other persons hit song from the 70's and make millions!!! Aren't I cool? Aren't I talented?

And to a recording label this is golden!! Long gone are the days when the label had to shell out $250,000 to develop an act and record them. They can now sign an act that needs no development because "suck" is in!! They sign it, mass-produce it, sell it, burn us out, and then find some other flavour of the month. It's all profit. No risk, no loss. In fact I dare say that most of the budgets these days go to the video subsidy.

And so what of progressive rock??

In today’s day and age it's doubtful that most of us under 30 would even remember the mainstay progressive rockers. Outside of "Dream Theater", no act has dared enter this pool to swim with the sharks. Most of us over 30 wouldn't dare enter anyway because so many have pissed in the pool. In this present age of multimedia and video one must first be sexy and alluring on camera- being a good musician is optional. The music videos of today are yesterday’s soft-core porn. Female singers peddle their bodies coming as close to being undressed as the censors will allow, .. And why not? Bank accounts swell, adoration is showered, and privilege is bestowed. Mindless drum loops and harmonizer-corrected vocals satiate the audiences spending the money, .. The cycle is endless. It's 7 miles wide but only one inch deep.

And who is spending the money? Who has that disposable income to waste on sickly sweet ear candy art that doesn't even come within a shade of it predecessors?

Children, ages 11-17, mainly female.

They don’t aim the music at the older generation anymore, they don’t write the songs for us. They write them for impressionable children. They don’t worry about the artistry of the album, but rather the bottom line! “How much will this album make?”, and “I have Lambourghini payments to make!”.

Things do change though- mp3 brought us downloadable music. Mp3’s also brought us the iPod. The iPod brought us the “podcast”, and that’s where we are getting even.

In this day and age when the average-joe can use his home computer to create a professional sounding radio program that rivals the big radio stations, then we find ourselves in a position to subvert the tyranny of the typical radio station programmer and bring back music that just sounds good. Video may have killed the radio star, but mp3 is killing the video star.

There’s a wealth of free downloadable music out there on the internet, and sites like garageband.com have raised the bar substantially in terms of the quality and talent of the average indie-musician. History repeats itself and it’s like shortwave radio all over again. A whole new generation of artists are out there, motivated not to make millions but rather to make the best music they can make- simply to be heard. There’s a wealth of new talent out there to discover,.. IF you are willing to give it a chance.

And if you’re willing to give it a chance, there may be surprises in store for you in the future.

2005-08-14T19:02:00.000-07:00

MUSIC ACTS 'GO IT ALONE'

Growing number of artists are going independent

NEW YORK (AP) -- In 2000, the Churchills thought they had it made.

The New York-based pop band had landed a major-label record deal and were fixed up with producer Mark Hart, former keyboardist with the seminal Australian band Crowded House.

Hart and the band booked a posh recording studio and the label, Universal, gave them a near-limitless budget. They recorded with only the finest guitars and ate gourmet lunches -- all charged to the album expense account.

Three months later, they had spent $270,000 and the record was finished. But strangely, nothing seemed to be happening.

"It felt like we were nobody's priority," said Churchills bassist-vocalist Bart Schoudel. "We would stop by the label's marketing department, and they would say, 'Oh, you guys made a great record and I think the critics are going to love it."'

Countless other bands have found themselves in a similar quandary: Signed to a major label, with promises of widespread distribution and big promotional budgets, yet going nowhere. They are casualties of an industry increasingly geared toward acts who can reliably sell millions of albums at a time.

As a result, a growing number of artists who do not fit that paradigm are going independent -- financing their own records and tours, securing distribution deals and serving as their own publicists.

For these so-called Do It Yourself artists, securing a major-label deal is no longer the object of their aspirations. They have either become disillusioned with the majors based on past mishaps or never saw a place for themselves within the establishment to begin with. Their efforts have been facilitated by home recording and the Internet.

The Churchills have released two albums since leaving Universal in 2001. And Christopher Dallman, a 26-year-old singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles, got private financing to record his first album, "Race the Light," two years ago. He shopped it around to small labels when it was finished, eventually piquing the interest of New Jersey-based Treasure Records.

He's since signed with a booking agent and will tour Ireland and North America this summer. He supplements his schedule by booking scattershot shows on his own, makes his own fliers and maintains his own Web site, all without the help of a manager or publicist.

"Most important are your songs, your live show, your album," Dallman said. "But it's a major mistake to think that your work ends there. I am on my computer all day long, making contacts, sending e-mails, researching different ways of getting my stuff out there. So time-consuming, but really worth it."

This allows him to maintain control over his own creative output. Major labels often exert pressure on artists to record material that is radio-friendly; a famous recent example is Fiona Apple, whose third album was rejected by her label allegedly for not being commercial enough and has since been leaked on the Internet.

"I can't imagine being creative with restrictions," Dallman said.

Since the 1970s, major labels have increasingly viewed musicians more in terms of their marketability than their talent, said Steven Zuckerman, executive producer of New York City's annual Global Entertainment Media Summit, a conference for independent artists.

Even by late in that decade, he said, "a business created by passionate music fans had become a business run by accountants and attorneys who treated an art form as nothing different than a box of shoes." Consolidation has been the major force behind that trend, he said.

The DIY business model has long been prevalent among punk-rockers, who began to record and distribute their own material in the early 1980s. But only recently have other genres begun to adopt DIY practices, inspired by the success of such artists as Aimee Mann and Ani DiFranco.

DiFranco is the unofficial DIY hero. She founded her own label, Righteous Babe Records, in 1990 and became famous based on her manic touring and recording schedule. Mann, meanwhile, releases records on her own Superego imprint -- though her profile got a big boost when her songs were included on the "Magnolia" soundtrack, released in 1999 on a major label.

The number of people recording music has also skyrocketed as home recording equipment and software have become increasingly affordable. A basic recording program, which can handle about 16 separate tracks, can now be bought for less than $100.

Skilled DIY musicians can learn to record music partially or wholly at home that sounds almost as good as what can be produced in a slick studio. The Churchills' new album, for example, cost them less than $10,000.

How are all these aspiring musicians marketing their product? The Internet has been a huge boon, because it allows cheap, direct distribution of music to -- and communication with -- fans. Practically every artist now has an official Web site, most offering free MP3 downloads, and they maintain e-mail lists to promote upcoming shows and releases. Many musicians also sign up with services that license their songs to pay-per-download sites like iTunes.

A growing number of DIY bands have also begun to license their songs to television. The popularity of youth-oriented shows such as "Scrubs," "Everwood" and "The O.C." has created a burgeoning demand for music to be used in the background of scenes or over closing credits.

Ron Haney, lead guitarist and vocalist for the Churchills, spends several weeks a year in Los Angeles pitching the band's songs to television insiders. "TV is the new radio," Haney said. "Kids don't listen to radio like they used to. TV is what's used now to break bands."

Since 1999, the Churchills have had songs placed in several shows, including all the ones mentioned above. Dallman has had a song placed in MTV's "The Real World."

In sum, artists say, the key is self-reliance. Among the nine members of The Sharp Things, a New York-based orchestral pop band featuring horns and strings, are a music publicist, a Web designer, a journalist, a marketing professional, two video directors and a music business attorney.

Says lead vocalist Perry Serpa: "We're a very self-sufficient bunch."

The band self-released its first album, "Here Comes the Sharp Things," in 2002; it won favorable reviews and got the band noticed by New Jersey-based indie label Bar/None, which released the follow-up, "Foxes and Hounds," in May.

Still, the band -- like all DIY bands -- does not rely on its label to sell it to the public, as have bands of the past. Nor does it hire "outsiders" to do its legwork.

"What's the point of seeking out certain people who would have half the passion, take twice as long to get the job done and are not as invested?" said Serpa. "We tend to outsource only when it's completely necessary."

But if the bottom line becomes irrelevant -- or at least de-emphasized -- what defines success among artists who choose to do it all themselves?

"The beauty of it is that the ideal of 'success' can be defined by each individual artist," Serpa said. "If you manufacture 1,500 records with the intention of selling them all on the road over two years' time and you achieve that, then that is success. The deal is that you really no longer need the bottom-liners to define that for you anymore."

2005-08-13T07:37:00.000-07:00

Van Halen Closing in on Orioles

Yahoo News
By Joal Ryan Fri Aug 12, 8:57 PM ET

If Van Halen was a sports franchise, the argument could be made it'd be the dysfunctional, "Bronx Zoo" version of the New York Yankees. In which case the Baltimore Orioles might be in trouble.

More often than not, the Yankees of that era beat the Orioles.

A showdown between Van Halen, the hard-rock supergroup, and the Baltimore Orioles, the fourth-place baseball club, is on after a judge rejected the team's attempt to bench the band's lawsuit challenge, the Baltimore Sun reported Friday. The start of the trial, set for Los Angeles, is "imminent," a Van Halen lawyer told the Associated Press.

The rivalry dates back to last year, when Van Halen filed a federal lawsuit alleging the Orioles reneged on a deal to bring the then-touring band to the team's Camden Yards. The would-be Sept. 2, 2004 concert would have been a first for the baseball-only facility. Presumably more important to Van Halen, the concert would have brought it about $1.5 million, plus an 80 percent cut of ticket and merchandise sales, the band claimed in the suit.

Technically, the suit is being pursued by Van Halen's management company, the newspaper said. The firm seeks at least $2 million in payback from the Orioles.

Even without a stop in Baltimore, Van Halen hit 80 cities during its 2004 tour. Billed as a new beginning for the veteran band, with "Right Now" singer Sammy Hagar back on vocals, the road trip ended with Hagar and guitar god Eddie Van Halen coming close to a bench-clearing brawl, Hagar recently told Billboard.

"It was a horrible way to end the whole thing," Hagar said in the music-industry magazine. "So, I just say, 'Man, that's it for me. I'm not playing with people like this.'"

Van Halen, the band, has been on hiatus as a recording and touring act since the tour ended last November, leaving bassist Michael Anthony time to touting the pending release of his two new barbecue sauce varietals, Mad Anthony's Original and Extra Hot. ("Reinforce the asbestos underwear," Anthony wrote on his Website this month.)

Meanwhile, Hagar, out on the road again this summer as a solo act, occasionally backed by Anthony, told Billboard he held out hope that Van Halen, the rocker who used to be "a fun guy," might "change back, and then we can do it again."

After all, comebacks are part of baseball.

*****************

Commentary

I think it's sad how these guys can't seem to get it together. From the outside it seems to me that this band has become very contrived and someone within their ranks is trying to be a controling master-mind, instead of letting things happen in a naturally unfolding, synergistic way that captializes on all four members strengths.

I dug Extreme, but when VH spirited away their lead singer and put that album out (the name of which I cannot even remember) I began to realize that their heyday was over, and that something had changed within the band. we were no longer talking about the artistic collaboration of four individuals, but rather a business operation like any other- say a hardware store, or a McDonalds franchise. It was clear that they "manufactured" their lastest incarnation to appeal to the younger crowd and remain competitive in a music scene that now favours loop-based, sampler style composition over musical technique.

It saddened me bcause extreme was brilliant, and by making that move they not only lowered themselves but killed one of my favorite bands.

Van Halen was best when they simply channeled their sum energies into doing what they did best- rocking hard and making great songs. Now it's so contrived I can't even name a song from their last album. This is the problem with the music industry these days- instead of focusing on brilliance, everyone is focusing on making Lambourghini payments. How much will this album bring in?? What's our bottom line??

I liked VH when Hagar was in, but this stupid crap ruins it all for me. Eventually all of my favourite literature gets ruined by the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

It won't end- ask a 14 year old who Van Halen is and he won't know. I'm sure he would know all the lyrics to the latest Eminem song, but would have no idea what "Eruption" was. The watering down of substance in the music industry will continue until they have completely screwed it up for everyone. The days of technical brilliance like Eddie had are long gone.

Jaedyn Conley
http://www.mydnyteproductions.com

2005-08-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

For sometime now I have been thinking about creating a blog. The Ph.D. curriculum is basically training me to write books, and as such I find myself writing more and more,.. In fact, it may be possible I am actually getting better at it!

Writing has always been one of my strengths, but I have always been rather bull-headed about format, punctuation, spelling and grammatical rules. Now that writing is the basis by which I survive in the university, I have taken this opportunity to slow down and actually take my cues from the spell check and remember my errors,… In short- I am trying to embrace better writing technique. One thing though,… I refuse to give up my ellipses.

Writing English prose isn’t all that different from writing music. In fact, it is actually, in my view, one in the same. The language is merely different (which may explain the ellipses).

Anyway- I have had an interest to create and maintain a blog for some time. I’m not sure that what I have to say is relevant to anyone. I’m not sure that I am interesting, or that I have any sort of thoughts that are in common with anyone else, but I have decided to commit myself to at least one posting a month. That I can do!

So I suppose the first thing to do is introduce myself. My name is David Jaedyn Conley and I am a 37 year-old university student currently studying in Melbourne Australia. I am a United States citizen and have been living outside of the country of my birth for 4.5 years. This, in itself, has been an eye opener. Everyone should try it. It’s not for the faint of heart. You will constantly have your assertions challenged. You will feel isolated. You will learn to speak a new language. You will constantly have your perceptions challenged. You will constantly have you assumptions challenged. You will LEARN!!!

I am, unfortunately, quite the artist. When I was younger I dreamed of being an artist. Now that I am, I wish I were an accountant. I am prone to the trademark irrationality of artists, and subscribe to intangible, rather irrational forces on my logic and decision-making processes. I react to unseen perceived forces and considerations. I wish it weren’t so- but if it wasn’t, I honestly know I wouldn’t be half the composer I am now.

This is largely due to my spiritual beliefs- I believe in an invisible world beyond this material incarnation. There is something out there, beyond what can see, or touch, or feel. As an artist is it my job to go out and wrestle things from the invisible world to the visible world. They don’t always translate well, but it is almost always provocative.

I’ve accomplished much in my short lifetime, and have an abundant surplus of things yet to accomplish. People tell me they would die to be able to do the things I can do,.. I tell them I am dying BECAUSE of the things I can do. There is no middle ground- when I am happy I am ecstatic. When I am sad I am ready to wither and die. When I am angry I am enraged. When I am intellectual, you cannot keep up. Does this sound like something you would like to be? I doubt it. Being able to play piano or guitar, or write music is a poor trade for stability. My “artistic” nature has both cost me and benefited me. I can only quote that great sage Neil Peart:

“It’s cold comfort,
To the ones without it,
To know how they struggled,
How they suffered about it,..

If they lives were exotic and strange,
They would’ve gladly exchanged them,
For something a little more plain,
Maybe something a little more sane.

We each pay a fabulous price,
For our visions of paradise
But a spirit with a vision is a dream-
With a mission.”

Mission
Hold Your Fire
Rush
Polygram Records © 1987

That’s me,.. A spirit with a vision, the dream with a mission. Sometimes it’s bliss. Sometimes it’s a fucking nightmare from which I cannot wake up. People tell me there is value in the music I write. Ok, and ‘oh well’. I’d be willing to bet you wouldn’t want to trade places with me if you knew what it really entailed.

I had an encounter in an elevator recently. I was in the lift, trying my best to look at the LCD displaying the floors as they whisked by, when he asked me how I was. This man- extremely well dressed and seemingly affluent was staying in one of the best hotels in Melbourne. He was wearing his Italian tailored suit with his leather attaché case tucked beneath his arm. I was in one of my moods and not readily willing to talk, but I indulged him. After some brief small talk he took notice of my slightly Australian affected accent and deduced I was from North America. He asked me what I was doing there and I said “Studying”. Pressing on, he enquired what I was studying and I responded “music”. “Ahh” he said, “You must be able to play the guitar! ” I blinked, wet and soaked from the winter-weather, a little annoyed and said “Yeah, for 32 years now”. It wasn’t a boast, merely an affirmation to his inquiry. “I’d give up everything I have to be able to do that” he replied, “I’ve never been able to work it out.”

Think so? You’re dry and I am wet from working my shit day job in the rain. You’re wearing a suit that would take me 3 months to save for. You’d trade it to play guitar?? Give me a break.

David Jaedyn Conley
www.mydnyteproductions.com