Riddles, Creations and Solutions
Are you angry yet?
I’m not annoyed by any individual dubstep song. Even that such a word exists hardly bothers me. The premise of a singular sound that an artist pigeonholes himself into does irritate me to no end, but that runs in every genre from the very real Flanders Recorder Quartet on up to Dimmu Borgir.
I’m also amused. Continue reading “DubStep: The Modern Answer to 80s Hair Metal”
Black Bert, an Austin Texas Magician is launching a new site, and I wanted to help him get the word out. I have seen him perform magic for large audiences from the stage and up close from across a small table.
The guy is great at what he does.
If anyone in Austin is looking to hire a local magician or even just see a video of one in action then please check out Black Bert’s site.
I’m posting this from a Wii video game system. Why not? Granted, the WYSIWYG editor refuses to work. I’m cool with that. I know my way around (x)html enough to not break my site.
At an early point in my professional life, there was a near-parable floating around the Internet. According to this tale, there was a programmer at a job interview. This programmer told his potential employer, “I dream in code.” Those four words were said to have set him apart from his competition and won him the job.
I have been pushing myself to remember things. These things were lost to the day-to-day life of being a grown-up. They were lost to my regrets of having not acted in favor of what I believed was a more patient, long-term commitment to myself. So I have been trying to remember.
I remember one year, the thing I wanted more than anything else for Christmas a copy of Borland’s C+ Compiler. I lost many Friday nights to a beat up, cigarette-stained computer and learned to chip away pieces of code, one function at a time. Continue reading “Screaming In Code”
I re-started some notes. I’m surprised he isn’t dead after everything they did to him.
I had a nightmare around two years ago. In this dream, I beaten and arrested over something trivial. Nothing this depraved has ever actually happened to me. Situations close enough to it have occurred. The police did not join in the festivities, but they did nothing to stop them.
Two years ago, that nightmare inspired my first vision of this Apocalypse. That bad dream would not only inspire a lot of notes for a story that never took off but would be a crucial element of this adventurer’s journey. The only problem was that it was an aimless journey. I knew what I wanted to say but had no reason to say it through this character or the world built around him.
The time between that first attempt and now has been wonderful in that I have made a lot of great friends. I have been finding strengths I thought were lost to the worst of times. Continue reading “A Handwritten Bible of an Apocalypse”
1982. My dad was showing me around his record collection when he yanked out Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefeart. Being that I was very young, I ran away screaming in pure horror. There’s not much else to tell, here, except that my father usually handled that album with care from then on. Only, from time to time, he liked to see if I would still jump.
Its presence in his record collection – and please remember these were the days of big vinyl disks – kept my hands and curiosity at bay. That album cover is burned into my mind like a smoldering scar.
Those who know me can understand why it’s much less frightening to see Fred Kreuger in a nearly perfect mirror image of the same album cover. “Freddy’s Greatest Hits” recently came to my attention by way of a blog devoted to the foolhardy days of vinyl. Here are the covers, side by side. Continue reading “Did Freddy Kreuger Plagiarize Captain Beefheart?”
Well, I want a place other than Facebook or Twitter to let this summary go. Facebook will eventually pull this post into my Notes on their site, but that really doesn’t phase me right now. I just have to get it off my chest.
What a weekend.
My USB MIDI interface arrived on Friday. By Saturday night, I had drum patterns going from FLStudio to my electronic drums in real time. Thus, the $8 cable allowed my existing equipment to turn into a rather nice sounding if slightly dumb drum machine. So, now I can have drums, Kaossilator, and Monotron all going at the same time to improvise electronic music.
Also, I can still play the drums while the MIDI information is being fed into it. Awesome. Just remember that you can’t say “polyphony” without “fun.”
Arts and crafts in the real world! I stopped by the big-name chain store on Saturday for supplies. Felt, fabric cloth, and (supposedly) clear blank stickers for my printer. I printed up four copies of my Riddle symbol. One for my drums, two for my electronic music toolbox, and one for my laptop. I also made a copy of that symbol on felt to hang during my video / horror show.
The video show was fun for me to do this week. I had the compressor working really nicely, but the software lied about just where my volume levels were. The software said 60%. The truth was more like 120%. Damn it all. But, the story meant a lot to me in a lot of ways, and I took my first step toward bringing conceptual continuity into the project.
Told everyone on Facebook that I was happily re-watching Necromentia. The director commented to say thanks. I now suggest you watch both Necromentia and the Gene Generation.
I also started work on finishing the human figure in a current project to draw the Major Arcana in my own sort of interpretation. There is no overriding theme. Simply trying to draw them as they might apply to my own life and journeys.
Been chatting with Lords of Acid on Twitter about seeing them in March. At the same time, a former co-worker texted me about seeing Lords of Acid in March. I might have to go see Lords of Acid in March. Now the question is: do I dig my “Our Little Secret” tour shirt out of storage?
Anyway.. wow. What a weekend.
iI have decided that it would be possible to tackle two resolutions at the same time by posting my progress publicly. Become a better drummer (again) and lose weight.
On January 3, I did this.
Thanks to my family up north for the Kaossilator, which is providing drums and a bassline for this video.
Well, I’ll start with a numbered list of all the things I do watch.
Now an easy unordered list of things I don’t watch.
Continue reading “I Do Not Watch the Following Things on Television”
The neighbor invited us to a birthday party that he was throwing for… well… I don’t know. But the kid looked to be younger than 10.
Having no present but wanting to contribute, I brought my bag of sculpting balloons and both of my travel pumps. They both broke. I ran back to the house to get my Coleman air-mattress inflating pump. Hey, whatever works.
At one point there were about two dozen kids in a moonwalk laughing and playing with balloon swords that I made for them. It felt GREAT. The neighbors asked if I wanted to be paid for it — no. I wanted to make the kid’s party better. I wanted the experience of working in front of a crowd. I spent about $4 on balloons to do both, and a fun time was had by all.
I also practiced doing magic in the main lobby at the Texas Association of Magicians conference about a month ago. It’s an ongoing fight against stage fright — and one I think I’m winning very well.