What’s this birthday thing?

So another year has come and gone. I’ve actually written this blog for longer than I ever thought I would. It sure as hell hasn’t been consistent. I’ve stopped writing about political stuff for the most part. I guess it frustrates me to the point that I don’t really give two shits about it. I also used to try not to cuss in my blog. I guess I don’t give three shits about that.

Maybe people say that cursing is a sign of stupidity, a lack of vocabulary. I would have to agree. I am both stupid and have a small vocabulary.

Though this last year has been marked with some trepidation, it has been on the whole a good year. My old band dissolved and got mixed into the solution of my new band. We’ve had a monster response so far. We’re saving up money and should be able to hit the studio in a few months.

I also finished my book. I had sent it off to some friends. One friend could not get past a graphic scene in the third chapter and refuses to answer any of my calls. A second friend read it once, thought it was great, wanted to read it again, but it depressed her even more the second time. The third friend I never really expected to read it, besides he’s in grad school and waaaay busy with too much stuff. Anyhoo, second friend is sending the book back. I’ll maybe tone it down a bit and send it off see anyone can stiffle their gag reflex long enough to reject it. Or not.

I started going really bald, so I preempted all and started shaving my head. I’ve been getting back into metal and industrial and away from hip hop and whatnot.

I’m not sure what else is happening, but I’ll keep me posted as I see fit.

Urban Blight

On West Broadway, an old building is about to be demolished. Originally it housed the Missoula City Water Works, or something like that. Covered in ivy and spray paint, the windows broken out, this building will be replaced by a Safeway or St. Patricks. Or perhaps it escaped its death sentence and I haven’t heard about it yet. Regardless, the sheds by it have been taken down. Even the parking lot across the street has vomited great chunks of asphalt.

I originally had a dream to buy that building. I would turn the offices into dorm rooms, and the large garage into a gallary/concert hall. Downstairs would be rented practice spaces. We’d have a communal kitchen, communal bathrooms, communal everything really. Anything to keep rent cheap and make it easier for the progressive art community to thrive in this gentrified city.

A lot of metal/progressive musicians in this town harbor dreams of some sort of concert venue. Some all ages place where the owner actually makes their money from the crowd and not the band. None of this band having to pay for security or sound or alcohol deposits. Just a place where the people can come and rock out without fear of retribution. I’ve only been to a few such clubs in my life.

It’s not that I mind progress that much. I love watching new construction. I adore skyscrapers and am thrilled with the tall buildings going up over town. When a city becomes dense enough, the added cost of driving can encourage more people to use public transportation. I personally live close enough to work to walk, but I would enjoy being able to take a bus when and where I want. Unfortunately, our buses don’t really run the times that I need them the most (i.e. at night and on the weekends).

I do mind progress when it happens to me. Recently our apartment building was sold. We were corralled into a new lease before notified that we will suffer construction all winter. They’re not really fixing anything, just added that colored metal siding to make the building look good. What slumlord would buy a building just to make it look more better on the outside? You would want a return on your investment, not just a continuation of the status quo.

My building, I realized, is being converted into condos. The whole city is being converted into condos. And in this rush to make money, these scum suckers are buying up most of Missoula and converting our apartments into condos. Why would anybody rent when they can buy? I’ll tell you why: because right now, buying costs way more than renting. Yes, I realize that’s the reason you’re converting my apartment into a condo, but I hope to Invisible Deity that this town explodes with condos and then suffers such a horrible slump that all these assholes lose their money. Not only lose their money, but lose their homes, cars, and all else and are forced to find a place to live in this overpriced market.

A city needs some kind of Urban Blight, or at least some section of town where the refuse can live. The North and West side are all but gentrified now. East Missoula has had a building boom. Even the Roosevelt area is getting fancy new housing. What’s the point of increasing the value of this property if it forces out the bottom tier from the city? And honestly where are we going to go? Further and further outside of the city, where the cost of gas will defray any savings in rent.

So, my generation is the one pushing to live closer to the city center. My reasons include being able to walk to work. Originally, it included the cheaper rent, but not so much anymore.

One of the workers, when asked by my wife, admitted that our apartments are being made into condos. This was after they cut down all the trees. I don’t know if I want to demand to be let out of the lease, to call fraud so that I can look for another place to live (some place where Lambros is not my slumlord), but I don’t think that I want to. I honestly just want to set up house someplace that I can call my own. Eventually it will be someplace where I can sound proof a room and have band practice. But that day is a long way off.

Re-Animated

We played our first show in several months last Friday. It went very much better than I thought it would. The set flowed as smooth as shit on glass. Almost too smoothly in fact. Mike had little time to actually talk to the crowd. We were so pumped that we needed little recoupe time. Jesus it was fun. Erasmus jumped in to the pit and got his eye bashed in. You can see the results on our myspace page. I forgot to wrap my knuckle and ended up shredding the skin off my finger. That said, I think I’m actually getting pretty good at rocking out and still playing a coherent guitar line.

My Randall cab pulled through beautifully. Though, I wish that I had a better head.

Why is it in Montana all these people feel compelled to be poor rockers? I mean, I work full time now and I bust my balls every day at my job. I try to spend as little of my money as possible so I can buy better gear. Hmmm… It’s no worries. It’s just that I’ve know lots of musicians who pride themselves on working dead end jobs for little or no money and then playing the cheapest gear they can find and congratulating themselves on “living the life.” Me? I like to “live the life” too, since I eat, breathe, sleep, and copulate music. I look at Musician’s Friend more than I look at porn. My wife even encouraged me to buy some porn to break my guitar gear addiction.

Anyway, back to the show. The crowd rocked out. We rocked out. There was much rocking. Shawn and Greg wore their gas masks. The effect was premo! We’ll get some pics posted later this week (hopefully) and maybe even a video.

Dumbledore’s Gay

Big effing whoop! I was reading a Time opinion moaning that Dumbledore’s sexual orientation couldn’t have been worked into the plot a bit more. I haven’t even bothered reading all the detractor’s opinions. As I read from someone, “The people most incensed by this, are already people who hated Potter in the first place.”

Dumbledore’s homosexuality was only revealed in response to a pointed question. If that question had not been asked we might have never known the backstory. Back stories are the story behind the main story. They are meant to give depth to the story’s world. The plot worked just fine without knowing Albus’s orientation, but now that we know it works even better.

However, I would go out on a limb and say that perhaps Rowling should not give up backstory information. I don’t know. Maybe I’m old school, but I feel that all answers should be found within the text. Rowling shouldn’t have to answer questions about the text if she did her job. Then again, it probably is helping sales. I don’t know.

Noveling

Well, my novel sort of on a stand still until my peeps read it and respond.

But I’m not letting that trip me up. I’ve started work on another novel. Originally, I wanted it to be short stories. I didn’t want to spend another indeterminate amount of time working on some behemoth, but the more I thought about the stories, the more they fleshed out to another novel.

I don’t want to give away too much, especially when I don’t know for sure what it’s about, but I really would like to make this story more chaotic, with perhaps more cohesion at the end. I don’t want it to be kitchey, though. No grandstanding or anything.

Hmmm… this FT job is kicking my ass though. I don’t seem to have enough time to work on it too much. That and the music is taking off. I’m really excited about this incarnation of the band. Hopefully we’ll see it going some place.

New Gear

I’ve been trying out my BBE Sonic Max/Compresser. It sounds good when playing by myself, but damn! As soon as the rest of the band chimes in, it goes nuts! In a bad way. It shows me my input and through no fault of the equipment, it can’t handle the extreme volumes we play. Normally, my guitar can only get the gauge to push to the -15 mark, but when the band chimes in, it hits red and stays red. I turn up the noisegate to 30 db, but it still can’t shut down the signal. That means that my guitar is picking up WAY too much signal.

There’s little I can do about it. I think I’ll still keep the unit. It will prolly come in handy for live shows, but when you play in a living room with two drummers, a bassist, and vocs, there’s little you can do to muffle the sound enough.

Annimaversary!!!

Woo hoo! Me and the missus have been married 2 years now.

We celebrated the day by doing mostly nothing. Actually we did more, but eh, it was good to relax and spend some QT together.

War of the Warts, Pt. III

I thought I might give a little update about my warts. Since I have nothing better to do.

Anyway, after a daily regimen of Salcylic Acid, my warts started shrinking. Not gradually, mind you, but first they would form a layer of callous, then the callous would flake off (often assisted by my prying fingers, and the exposed seeds would suffer another burst of the frozen spray. After doing this for three or four months, I finally got the wart on my right index finger down to one giant seed.

Now, I know in a previous blog, I had said that one should never pull at the seed, but this time I couldn’t help myself. I got out the tweezers and ripped that fucker out.

It bled. Oh my, did it bleed.

I ran the wound under hot water to try to force the remaining spores to the surface, but saw nothing. Then I froze it and before it could start bleeding again, drenched it with salcylic acid. The acid stopped the blood, forming sort of a crystal globe, through which the blood formed a tender flower.

During the following days, I froze the spot a few more times and added more acid.

After that, I waited.

Now several months later, the wart has yet to resurface. That’s two (or three) down, one to go.

Gear

Obviously, I haven’t been writing much. Blah, so what? Maybe I’ve found a new outlet? Not so frustrated now, are we? Now that practices are back in session.

Anyhoo, we found a new singer. Our DJ got a keyboard and was making some funky sounds the other day. I finally got my debts paid off so I can buy better gear. Plus I’m working full time now. Also we couldn’t afford for wife to go to school so she’s working, too.

It’s nice to finally have some extra money and buy some gear.

The first thing I bought was a new amp. Nothing special: a Carvin solid state 2×12. Decent sound, but those speaker buzz when I push the volume past 7. I can’t say I blame them. That’s an awful lot of sound for such little speakers.

Then I was trying to buy some rack gear: a sonic maximizer/compressor (to regulate and enhance the sound), a power conditioner (to clean up the AC supply), and a rack case to hold the racks.

Now here’s where my story gets long.

About a year ago, I bought some gear from Musicians Friend (MF). Included was a Peavey Powered speaker. This is a 270 Watt PA system that would allow me to generate more sound for my (then) singing w/o having to shout so much.

I bought it under the clearance section. The ad said that it came with full warranty. In fact, MF’s used Peavey ads still say they come with full warranty. MF has a fairly generous return policy. You can return most anything for any reason withing the first 45 days.

Well, go figure, my Peavey amp broke down on day 47. No problem, I figure, I’ve got a warranty. Not only that, but I bought the EXTRA protection MF offers at the check out. I called MF, figuring I would talk to Customer Service (CS) and they could help me figure out how to activate my warranty. I did this because the amp came with no paper work, cards, etc. I was directed to Peavey, who took the serial number from the amp, and asked if I was “_______” (some name I don’t remember). No, I wasn’t. Well, it turns out the douchebag who owned the amp before me (since it was used) activated the warranty, but when the amp lemoned him, he returned rather than go through Peavey.

Thus, I was informed that Peavey DOES NOT warranty used equipment.

I’ll try to give you the montage version, but I called MF, Peavey, and the third rate insurance company (who informed me that the extra insurance was void since they only EXTEND the original manufacter’s warranty, I was null and void, MF should have never offered me their coverage, and that my coverage was thereby nullified (btw: purchasing equipment w/ Visa, MC, and American Express gives you that same coverage that MF offers at checkout. I know because I checked) multiple times over the next month. Finally I bullied my way to talk to a manager and demanded my money back due to fraud. He sent me a return slip right away and I mailed the amp back the same day.

Long story short, MF has the WORST Customer service I have ever encountered.

This time around, I didn’t want to deal with MF. I found a website call music123.com. Though the website looked strangely familiar to MF’s site, nothing on the site indicated they were affiliated. I bought the rack gear and the rack from there.

First, I got the power condition. It ONE piece of packing paper which did nothing to prevent it from rattling around. I plugged it in and it still worked. So no problems there. Then I got the rack. But it wasn’t a rack for rack gear, but a drum rack. I didn’t even open up the box. I got on the phone and called up music123. The dude I talked to said I would get a return label in the next two hours.

The next day I check my email. When I saw no return label, I emailed music123.com. The return msg said that my msg was received and that it would take up 24 hours to get a response. On Monday, w/ still no response or return label, I called up again. Talked to someone who actually sounded like he didn’t toke for a living, who said that the previous guy forgot to add the “.com” to my email address.

This morning, I got the return tag. Sure enough, it’s being mailed back to Musician’s Friend. The label came directly from UPS, so I doubt that they fucked that one up. More than likely my gut instinct was confirmed: I got MF’d again.

Full Moon

So, two weeks ago (give or take) I felt really really good. I checked the moon chart just to see if it were a full moon. Full moon would mean that the moon was approx. opposite the sun. Maybe the gravitational pull was making me feel lighter and more energetic. However, it was actually the new moon.

Now, today, for the full moon, I feel really anxious. It’s been getting worse for the past couple of days, and then this morning it hits. I kept hitting the snooze. I really didn’t want to get out of bed and go to work. Even my horoscope says to take it easy and not get too riled up about things. It’s going to be a shitty day.

I don’t know if I believe in all the hocus pocus, but I know how I feel, and I know how I act when I feel this way: I get really confrontational and want to do things that make me feel good.

I want to have band practice again. We haven’t jammed since our pad got evacuated for a forest fire. But they’re back in again, no harm to the house (thankfully), but no call yet to have another practice. I sometimes feel like I’m the only one in the band who wants to keep it going. I know that we all want to play shows, but we need a singer first and we’re still auditioning. Then it’ll be at least a couple of months before we’re ready to hit the stage.

Hrumph. I guess I’ll take my chill pill for the day and let all alone.