KARMATH (2009)

The Last Transcendence

2009-12-31T12:19:00.006-06:00

It's come to this.

The end.

In the end of 2008, I attempted to embark on a project, a personal project. Document something of note for every day of 2009. I wanted an MP3 blog filled with audio clips, streaming videos, tons of photos, my own edited videos, whatever. It was to be a media frenzy. In the "my own edited videos" department I have a few works, a few blogs with them. But to be honest, my computer crashed to the point where I lost Adobe Premiere Pro, my video editing software, and I also lost my video camera capturing software. I am basically SOL on that front.

Thank god the audio aspect of my computer is intact, though. This is the most important aspect to my computer. Everything seems to be in working order on this front.

I think I did well in the media department.

The main crux of the blog was to document the daily trials and tribulations of Patch. Where was I a year ago? Where am I now?

Truth be told: not in a very different spot.

January 2009: I was recording Schematics tracks. Three more were to be fleshed out for the project. "Typosgraphy" was the current track, and I was having a hell of a time working with it. "In Hopes to Mend" was also a doozie, and if I remember correctly, it took two and a half months to record that one song. "Switch" took two weeks. Go figure.

I sent the tracks over to Schuyler for mixing and mastering in May 2009. He worked for two weeks then told me he had to stop and start over due to him not being happy with the results of his mixing, and because of a large three month trip to Europe he was to be on for the entire summer. I basically sat on my recordings for this time, playing with Taylor's Lizard People project in the meantime. After Schuyler returned, we started on the project again. From late September until early December he mixed. During this time, I was also finishing up Lizard People recordings as a tit for tat with Taylor for Schematics artwork that he had agreed to work on. I finished Lizard People in late October and immediately set about getting the live band together for Patch.

November and December were full of band meetings, lunch meetings, changing members, rehearsals and seeing how everyone interacted.

Where am I now?

1) I have to move out of my practice space due to noise complaints by my neighbor. I have a new space ready for our moving in in January, however.
2) I have four members of Patch intact. The lead guitarist role has once again been left vacant. Matt Anderson leveled with me yesterday and thought that he wouldn't be able to do both his band, The Engagement, and Patch. I'm currently looking to fill the last slot.
3) Schematics will be finished in mastering the week of January 11th. The artwork will be finished in the next couple of days here, as Taylor will be bunking up at my house for the next week. During this time, we will be finalizing all of the artwork for the CD, and starting to work on the Patch website art.
4) To coincide with the Schematics release, I will be recording new songs to be released as free MP3's for those who buy the physical Schematics EP. Simple and minimalistic in nature, the music will focus on Ommission, a loss of words, a loss of my intact nature. It's based off of some recent personal events in my life that would most likely cause some mayhem if I were to describe them here publicly.
5) Patch Live 1.0 will be onstage early March. Schematics and Omiss will be released at that time as well.

Patch will be public March 2010.

It's been tough. Constant uphill battles. My day job mixes with Patch in the afternoons due to so many calls that have to be made, plans set in stone, coordinating schedules without losing my mind.

So, Patch is still brewing. It's farther along, of course, but mainly in regards to having a lot of it out of my hands. "Hurry Up and Wait" is the main line heard in the popular music world. Deadlines are met and then you sit on your efforts for awhile. You think, "Did I really need a deadline in the first place?"

With this blog, I also wanted to document my personal life. One last attempt, since I'll be setting all of these aspects of my life to private once Patch goes public. I wanted to talk about my work with children, my relationships, my family drama.

One of the interesting developments in the personal life realm was the realization of friendship I had with the Brotherhood, the people who all lived in a little house on Monroe Street in Northeast, Minneapolis. It started from Citizens Banned wanting to share a house where we would all live, breathe, and create together in one nucleus. This fell apart, and Taylor and I brought home two women that we had picked up at a dance club downtown. We had these two meet another close friend of me and Adri. We became inseparable in 2007 and 2008.

2009 brought an end to everyone living at Monroe. Everyone moved away, leaving me with the house for Patch purposes. Now that Patch has been given the boot . . . this will most likely be the last year for me at Monroe. It still offers me recording space, but at 25 I've grown and procured too much stuff that my room is stifling and suffocating. I need to move on.

With everyone coming back for the holidays, though, this blog ends. Karmath was a term I came up with relating to Citizens Banned, and it since has been ingrained as the story of the Brotherhood. The songs on the Karmath EP were all written at Monroe, they are all about the Monroe residents. Karmath the Blog is a written testimony to their existence in prose. And how much I love them.

A basic need in my life, one that I've searched for since I was a small child, has finally reached a climax, a resolution. I've found a group of friends that will remain the closest soulmates to my own soul until the day I die. People I will always call on. People I will always visit. People who will father and mother my children, and help out my own true family. They're all going to be at Monroe tonight for a massive New Years party. A true homecoming. A true hurrah.

My brothers and sisters. This was my document to myself that this is where it all became realized. 2009 was the beginning of a new era. Schooling stopped in 2006, leaving the Brotherhood. The school of the Brotherhood stopped in 2009. Now, for me, it's Patch. School: check. Friends: check. Career: ?

2010 will be a very important year. My dream will become reality. I will most likely change and grow in a way I never imagined. It's a strange frontier, putting a new voice out in the world like I want to do. But I'm ready.

I've got the friends to back me up. The people to call on when I need help and a break. Support. Everything has led to this point. 2009 is the climax to my youth.

2010 will be the separation of the man from the boy in me.

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To fully wrap this project up, I've linked some of my favorite entries below. These represent some of the more seminal 2009 moments, an entry I'm proud of, something special, etc. Most days' entries I'm proud of, but these stand out to me. I've had three quasi-official relationships in the past year, great successes, great moments of fear and stress. Here it is, a recap in Karmath the Blog form of 2009:

1. 1/5/09: Polish Sausages
2. 1/6/09: Pi
3. 1/7/09: A Call to Arms
4. 1/21/09: Brigade of Mascots
5. 1/22/09: No Longer Striding
6. 2/7/09: Finally Striding
7. 2/8/09: Slithers and Dust
8. 2/21/09: Metafiction
9. 2/28/09: A Prologue to an Epilogue
10. 3/1/09: Mustaches and Mayhem
11. 3/6/09: Casualties of War
12. 3/28/09: Marathon Sprints
13. 3/31/09: The Sandwich Crust Epidemic
14. 4/2/09: Yo'plaited
15. 4/13/09: I Hoped to End
16. 4/24/09: Army of Darkness
17. 5/4/09: SUCCESS!!!!
18. 5/17/09: Broom Stick Revolver
19. 6/28/09: Liquored Truths and Glittered Booths
20. 7/30/09: The Coma Child Incident
21. 8/4/09: That Girl Interrupted My Great Balls of Fire
22. 8/8/09: My Visit from Beelzebub
23. 8/13/09: The Foreskin Debate
24. 8/14/09: Rats and Revenge
25. 8/17/09: One Dollar Baby
26. 8/21/09: Lizard People IV: The Final Showdown
27. 8/28/09: Fine Print of Obligation
28. 8/30/09: Polish Sausages II
29. 9/4/09: How the Swedes Kill Kittens
30. 9/18/09: West's Dead End
31. 9/23/09: The Missing Beak
32. 10/5/09: Hair o' the Dog
33. 10/18/09: Tainted Love
34. 10/31/09: Mainstream Mania
35. 11/12/09: The Cost of Noise
36. 11/14/09: A Day of Firsts
37. 12/6/09: PATCH LIVE
38. 12/9/09: Hi, My Name is Robert
39. 12/12/09: Smokey and the McMuffin
40. 12/30/09: The Anchor-age

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And now, 2010.

Karmath the Blog will exist, but nothing will be added to it. This is the last blog entry.

Welcome to Circadia will now be the main blog. I will most likely have another personal blog, but it will be pretty private, pretty exclusive. For now, Welcome to Circadia will have to suffice.

It's been a good blog, this here Karmath. But I'm tired of working on it everyday. But I fucking did it! I . . . beat . . . you . . .

2010, bring it on. Time to step into the next era. A scary, strange, foreign era of my life.

This is Peter . . . signing off.

Ennio Morricone -- "L'estasi Dell'oro"

The Anchor-age

2009-12-30T22:22:00.001-06:00

The stench was a mixture of seaweed and sulphur.

Echoes permeated out of the catacombs in such a way as to distill upon impact with the open air, distilling before a wayward passersby would happen to stumble upon the proceedings within The Anchor, a successful restaurant in the light of day, a secret meeting ground in the still of night.

I had traveled alone in the cold. Traversing slick roads, crying children, sickly men, I pulled my coat tighter around my vessel. As of late, the cold and society had proven to cause a sickish temperance within my mood. I was hurried, I was famished. Tarnished with need, it was an order by the powers that be that we should have the Brotherhood coalesce into one vecter. Want fled once the cold was let in.

Yet, I carried on. I was leisurely, I was fed, or so the mantra tried feverishly to implore upon my consciousness. Stopping along the corner of my destination, the aforementioned concoction brewed haphazardly for the fancy of the poignant sense, smell, perforated my innards with a grimacing bite. I was near.

Stepping up to the hidden door, I let loose my overcoat. The mantra left as cool reality rushed in. I cared not for the smell, but only for the mantra to be rendered mute by the redundancy of true warmth. But I had to keep my wits, my memory. There is an order to the elements of our strange universe, and I had to abide.

I bared the sign stitched into my chest, unbuttoning my shirt for the guard to ponder. He decided it was of good fortune to let me pass. I gave him a shilling for his ponderment.

Traversing into the dank hallways underneath The Anchor, I smiled, beside myself. This was my order, my doing. The human in me would always cry mercy from the outer environments, but once inside, where transcendency reigned, the warmth of hope triumphed. The proceedings were of my calling, and I was on time. Fashionably late in my arrival.

A turn here, a turn there, I reached my destination. Warm firelight attempted to sneak underneath the blocked doorchamber, to hardly any avail. Again, I smirked at the dichotomy between survival and want. Something as trite as firelight abided the laws of Karmath, the laws of the universe, needing to escape to new corners, to find sustenance in any place dark. Yet, I stuttered, it shouldn't be surprising to think of one of the four basic elements to be a primary example of law and truth.

I shook my head. Time to swim to the surface. Time to meet the Brotherhood.

I knocked. I heard a rasp on the other side. "I drive, you walk, I say-"

I answered. "Salsa."

The door opened on my party. Baring the stitch within my chest yet again, the stitch we share as Brothers, the stitch of the chili pepper, we all bared our chests. We were well met.

I took off my coat, my mantras expelled like I had surmised. Speech was of the essence, and in that quadrant of my brain I now tried to work.

"Sit down, Brothers," I began.

The order, which consists of men and women, eight including myself, sat in chairs. Jeremiah, the caretaker of The Anchor and overseer to the proceedings, also shared our company. I remained standing, cemented in pacing within the center of a celebratory circle of chairs.

"I've called us here to talk of the past, the present, and future." Good man, start vague, reign it into detail. "We Brothers have been through a lot together. And recently we hath seen trial and tribulation at having our order separated across the good land of America. We are in pressing times, I need not remind ye. The order is threatened only in new members, but it is hard to let new blood into an already established bond of entertwined vessels and veins, is it not? Trust comes to mind, mark it, trust is very mischievous, yes.

"We started as three. Adri, Lord High Genius of Salsa, Louis, Chief of Salsa, Taylor, Chief of Salsa. You hath procured a fourth, me, Peter, Thane of Salsa. Together we four traversed our vicinity, minstrels on the path of enlightenment within the alchemy of guitars, bass, drums, and vocals. What we made carried over not in art, but in friendship. The Brotherhood was established, and this order came to rise. Our art continues, but it pales in respect to the Brotherhood.

"Our activities were overseen with the guise of prankmanship. While we studied alchemy, we passed it off as if we were children surmising to frighten the weary citizens of our vicinity. A traveller on foot, lost in internal thought, would suddenly be swept out of his tired dream and into a harsh realm of realizing they had just been . . . salsa'd. We, screaming from a better means of travel, an automotive, perhaps, would make them know their inferiority. 'SALSA' we said to the world on high. Say it with me now, Brothers!"

They all screamed "SALSA! SALSA! SALSA!!!"

"Yes," I continued. "And new members infiltrated the four. Gregory, of the Second Circle, which was not called tonight, Louis' family and friends, also of the Second Circle, et cetera, et cetera. We became quite a clan. Alas, our alchemy was proven false, and we drifted. We set out to have an abode, a true epicenter to the Brotherhood. It is here where we began our true blood tying.

"We brought Nicole, Daughter of Mild Chili, and her beau Ryan, Chunky Down Under, Kristen, Hot Wild Winger, and Marta, Smooth Queso Dipster into the fraternity. And they passed. One's blood flows within the other. We are one. And we are met tonight.

"Two years passed as we let the Salsa slip and we delved into the Queso, the cheese of our innards. We were friends, meeting with happiness, sadness, anger, and wholesomeness. We have moved into a realm of the new life, where our Brothers thought it necessary to embark on their journeys, yet never distilling the blood of the other from out their travelled hearts. Seattle, Washington D.C., Rhode Island, now claim our Brotherhood.

"I will now talk about the future, my friends. We need not dwell on the past, only in that it would be redundant to do so. We know what I speak, I speak what ye know. Redundancy in tow. We will dispense of this foul play.

"Our Salsa Ship hath sailed. Anchors have been cast aboard and let loose to the new territories claiming our blood. We have reached a maturity, a transcendence, into travelling Brothers, a place where we will need to be remembered for our past but prepare for the future. Marriages will proceed, children of our blood, we must bear the insignia of the new and mature. Let's dispense of this Salsa, take the stitches of our Chili Peppers out from our epidermis, and brand ourselves . . . The Anchorage.

"Three of our women folk hath branded themselves in this very sign. The Anchor represents a tool of travel, yet when the Anchor truly shows, the travelling vessel is at rest. Anchors are sunken into the bowels of the shallow sea so that its sailors may take heed in the land they hath discovered. They will rust away as the sea taketh, once we have perished, like the waves on a sandbar.

"I now ask of ye to see my persuasion. My motives are clear. Our Brotherhood is now the Anchorage. We shall brand ourselves in the mark, we shall call the eatery above home. A nexus for our meeting. We shall bring new members to this very latitude and test their blood for appropriation within the Anchorage.

"What say ye, Brothers? Do I speak in vain? I ask not for an answer. I only ask for your silent pondering. I will take leave of this proceeding, and see ye in the open air in the days ahead to tell me of your answers. Be well, ladies and gentlemen. Pleasant merriments."

And with that, I stripped myself of my Chili stitches. I dropped them to the floor, turned, and donned my coat. The warmth of my speech had driven away my mantras permanently for the night. In that thought, I smiled again.

Dropkick Murphys -- "Kiss Me, I'm Shit Faced"

The Dyes of Patch 5

2009-12-29T23:21:00.003-06:00

While all of the other main influences remain pretty much equal in terms of how much they influence me, how much I listen and study them, the final influence might be the biggest and most important because it is the one that holds everything together.

Patch relies on storytelling. The lyrics are usually the first component of a song ever written down. Not music. It's all poetry, or prose describing the storyline that will be turned into poetry or lyrics. Then the music is written to help carry the storyline in a personal, empathetical way, hopefully coalescing into a new sound.

I also like to use a lot of symbolism. Abstract images, speaking in small hints, giving clues, making up worlds and huge concepts. Plus, the stories and the lyrics are committed. I want to sound like I really believe in what I'm saying.

No one has given me greater influence in this regard than Marilyn Manson.

His work from 1994 through 2001 remains some of the most poignant storytelling and conviction I have ever heard in lyrical rock. The music is secondary to Manson's voice and lyrics.

However, Trent Reznor produced his first two records, having more of an input on Manson's greatest record, "Antichrist Superstar". He plays on most of the songs, even. It is on this record where both Trent's musical knowledge/production and Manson's gift of poetry joined together in the most perfect way.

"Antichrist Superstar" might be the most influential record of all time for me.

You've got theatre, found production and noise, a new sound (Trent's), challenging songwriting, and some of the best lyrics in rock n' roll. Boom! Patch was born while listening to this record on repeat in sixth grade back in 1996 and 1997. I wanted to put images and noises together. I wanted to perform crazy antics onstage. I wanted to shock people into thinking a different way.

The big three: "Antichrist Superstar", "Mechanical Animals", and "Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)", are the main crux of Manson's good work. After these he delved into more campy goth territory. It's still interesting, he's still dealing with concepts and great influences and symbolism and metaphor, but it lacks the importance of the big three. Still, even "Mechanical" and "Holy Wood" don't hold a candle to "Antichrist". It's all here.

Every lyric is a symbol. Every symbol within the liner notes relates to a lyric. Everything in the music relates to the poetry. Everything in Manson's performance dealt with the story and the lyrics. Everything is connected, everything is whole. Perfect.

So really, listen to "Antichrist Superstar" in its entirety. It's a good place to start if you want to know where the whole Patch dream came from.

Here's "The Reflecting God", track 15 on "Antichrist", quite possibly my favorite Manson track:

Marilyn Manson -- "The Reflecting God"

The Dyes of Patch 4

2009-12-28T23:34:00.003-06:00

This next influence is the most direct, meaning it pertains specifically to songwriting and style. I'm a rhythm section writer by heart, guitars usually come second to drums and root notes in bass composition. One band has opened my eyes to guitars, to different time signatures, to challenging the audience by overwhelming means of writing and delivery.

The Mars Volta started out as mud to me. As time went on, I started to get them. More and more I came to realize that Cedric Bixler-Zavala's vocal delivery was my favorite out of any other vocal artist. He has quivers in his falsetto, his voice is gutwrenchingly high (meaning it's impossible for me to ever sing in his range), he conveys such emotion with each syllable. He's fantastic.

Omar Rodriguez-Lopez writes the music. He fuses latin jazz with punk rock. Again, a whole new sound all their own. But this might be one of the more challenging forms of "new sounds" in modern music today. A lot of people have a love/hate relationship with the Volta. They started out strong with their debut "De-loused in the Comatorium" and since have descended in critical acclaim. Their latest record, however, "Octahedron", has garnered praise, mainly because it is more simplistic in nature than their other recent ventures like "Amputechture" and "The Bedlam in Goliath". For me, "Frances the Mute" takes the cake as best Volta record. It was the most challenging record, but it was still riding on their success with "De-loused" for most people. It's the most mature and gutsy. The ends of songs have sprawling electronic ambient outros, but the songs themselves are pretty focused and well-written. The last song, "Cassandra Gemini", clocks in at 32 minutes.

After listening to this record and "De-loused" over and over, I welcomed the new material with open arms. The stuff that got more carried away, with lots of different sections and changes. "Amputechture" might have been the record that changed me as a songwriter. At this point, my songwriting was very 4/4 based, blues riffs, production oriented. After listening to "Amputechture", I immediately wrote "Typosgraphy", totally a play off of Volta. Since then, I've tried to make it a goal to have lots of different changes, challenging time signatures, challenging riffs, more story arcs in my writing. They can put mind blowing rock together with emotional music. Again, here's another band that can make me cry. I always get tears in my eyes at the end of "Frances" when the acoustic guitar comes in for the last minute after the thirty minutes of noise in "Cassandra Gemini".

Another song of mine is a good example of the change I've experienced. "Trachomanic" has a lot of changes, and could be the best example of things to come for Patch. Every one of my influences is exemplified here: NIN's electronica and punk beat, Beck's found production, Tom Waits' theatrical personality, the Volta's section changes and complicated solos. The last influence, tomorrow's, puts the final touch on all of these . . . a lyrical influence, symbollism. Intense, engaging storytelling.

Here's one of my favorite songs by The Mars Volta. It shows the section changes, the complicated solos, the complicated rhythm section, their own patented sound, the emotion in Cedric's vocals, and the intensity of the climax in the movements. This song makes me crazy (in a good way) whenever I listen to it. Especially the end.

The Mars Volta -- "Goliath"

The Dyes of Patch 3

2009-12-27T22:20:00.005-06:00

Anyone who knows me and my musical tastes shouldn't find this next icon to be a surprise.

Growing up, he was my main influence. The be all, end all. Nothing could take the reign as top dog in my book other than this man. Reflecting now on the last couple of years, where Patch has started to take a new direction and have a maturity in my mind regarding songwriting, I view this icon's music in a different way.

Trent Reznor, to me, is the ultimate producer. A producer who has crafted his own sound. When a Nine Inch Nails song comes on the radio, you know exactly who made it, even if you've never heard the song before. One of my main fears about Patch was that, because I've listened to NIN all my life and have pretty much studied Trent's production everyday since I was 10, my music would sound like Trent produced it.

People ask, "Would it be your dream to have Trent Reznor produce Patch?" I retort with a large "NO! That would completely make it his, not mine, then. My production skills would be nothing. I'd like for him to like my music, but never to produce it."

I want my own sound. I want to come up with something no one else could replicate. It's what I call "Typosgraphy", having something completely new that no one else can call their own. Make my own crime scene using evidence and markers from the past, my influences, and making it the Peter Kenyon sound.

Trent's lyrics are less than desired. But they have personality (just like Tom Waits). You can sense personal emotion in the delivery. The main treat of NIN is the music. When Trent spouts his thoughts on sex, loss, government, etc., it's the music that does most of the talking. He takes electronica and puts it together with acoustic instruments, very much what I like to do. I just hope to god it doesn't sound the same.

This blend of electro-acoustic is heard in "Just Like You Imagined" from The Fragile. This is one of the only songs in the music world to make me cry on occasion. It's instrumental, save for a chorus of "Ahhh's" by Trent. It's placed in a portion of The Fragile representing Trent's fall from helping another, someone who has been with him on his journey of repair, a lover perhaps, and he/she betrays him. At least, that's what sources say. To me, it's a representation of losing something you love in a terrible way. I broke up with a girlfriend of two years and immediately put this song on. It was a bad breakup, and it was everything that I was feeling. The music has personality, not just vocals. Trent speaks best through the instrumentation of his music. His vocal delivery just adds a cherry on top of the masterpiece.

Plus, on a live performance level, Trent's energy onstage is some of the best stuff I feed off of. Especially in the early NIN days, Trent was so crazy, you'd fear for your life if you were in the front row. I'd like to embody that intensity, that danger, in my live shows.

I hope my music has both a vocal personality akin to Tom and Trent's voice delivery, and the notion of an entirely new sound that speaks volumes in its own personality. A new language, a new school. "Typosgraphy".

Nine Inch Nails -- "Just Like You Imagined"

The Dyes of Patch 2

2009-12-26T21:27:00.002-06:00

The next main influence to my songwriting doesn't happen to be an artist I listen to every day. I like half of his songs, I get bored from the other half. But I respect his whole repertoire due to the way that he carries himself as an artist. He blends reality and fiction into a whole where you're not sure where the story begins and the true artist ends. He has made a complete ethos out of himself, as much an actor as he is a musician. He is a more "down-to-earth" version of my number one influence. A more folky version. A lighter version. More quirky and campy.

One extreme in my songwriting to my number one's other extreme.

This man is Tom Waits.

His more straight ahead blues songs, his ballads, I don't much care for. It's the weird stuff, the stuff where you can hear the room ambience in the recording, where his gruff scream is the ultimate delivery, where bones are played instead of regular drums, where the theatricality of it all comes out. I picture some basement of a dive bar to be the locale for Tom Waits' music. A strange cabaret where something isn't quite right, but you'll go along for the ride. I like when an artist prompts the audience to constantly question the sanity of the man/woman behind the work.

I dabble in simplistic production from time to time. Set up pots and pans in a room, play a simple acoustic riff, and scream from across the room. It adds character and depth to the personality of the music. Mr. Waits is excellent at portraying character.

One of the best examples of Tom's work for my influence would be his song "Earth Died Screaming" from the album Bone Machine, and one of the main songs from the "12 Monkeys" soundtrack. It was actually the first song I heard of his. I thought it was special, a dark voice with such a strange personality to it. So much is going in the way he conveys the message, but it's done in such a simplistic way. There are bones for percussion, a distorted blues guitar, and Tom's voice. That's it, except for the Death song excerpt at the end. Hearing this song, it makes me want to find a random venue, not traditional, where the band takes garbage cans, water jugs, chains, one guitar and one amp (one of lesser quality) and put on a show entirely in this magnitude. I wrote a song called "Whisper a Scream" which consisted just of metal on stone hits and vocals. A lot of "In Hopes to Mend" is inspired by Tom Waits, as well. One of the main features of the bridge is a bongo drum played with me holding keys loosely in my right hand. I put the reverb up in such a way as to suggest that I played it in a lone basement room, which is where the song takes place.

A basement room not unlike the one I picture Tom to claim as his performance throne.

Tom Waits -- "Earth Died Screaming"

By the Fire, Together Again

2009-12-25T21:03:00.001-06:00

A low key day. Saw a movie at the theater (Sherlock Holmes), Cosmos, presents, dinner, board games, the newest Pixar movie viewing (I always ask for the latest Pixar movie every year from my mom) whilst sitting near a fire.

Pretty run of the mill for X-Mas with mom. I can't complain.

I do wish for the big family experience, but I guess that'll have to wait until I'm married.

Here's the end of my favorite Christmas movie, "Scrooged". I dedicate it to a friend who showed me that Christmas is okay, it's not as scary of a holiday as I sometimes make it out to be. Thanks LG!

Pearl Jam -- "Let Me Sleep"

Hallelujah

2009-12-24T20:42:00.000-06:00

Whenever I've gone home this year, I've written about my father and stepmother, and how I become a little insecure around them, looking for acceptance. This Christmas Eve, my brother was in Kenya, it was just me at their house. I brought Chianti. It provided for a rather splendid evening. We were all drunk, laughing hysterically about everything.

It was the first time that I felt accepted by my father.

I can't think of a better Christmas present.

Here's the beginning of my favorite Christmas movie, "Scrooged":

Crash Kings -- "Mountain Man"

GoodFellas

2009-12-23T08:32:00.006-06:00

It was either a scene from GoodFellas or like going to a reunion with your family when you were younger, seeing friends from the past meeting up together, loud and drunk, making you feel uncomfortable since you were a helpless little child who wanted to stick around your parents and all types of strangers were pulling your cheeks. "You're gettin' so big!"

I feel like I became that adult yesterday, the one that is now old enough to meet up with people from the past at seminal establishments. Nicole (my good friend, not my awesome neighbor) and Ryan came back from Rhode Island yesterday, and another friend, Wade, decided to throw a little get-together old crew style. Karaoke at Grumpy's.

In the second entry of Karmath, I mentioned Karaoke at the U Otter Stop Inn bar near my home. There was something magical about last night, though. U Otter was before I knew everyone would be leaving Minneapolis. All of the gang is coming back this holiday season. We're throwing a large New Years party to celebrate the homecoming.

Adri and I decided to go to Grumpy's together. It was a quiet night on the streets. Downtown seemed dead. Grumpy's itself seemed a little empty as well. The alcove just off to the side of the bar holds the Staraoke event, what I consider to be the biggest Karaoke event in the Twin Cities. The place was packed with both the homecoming party and another birthday party. Friends from my theater past and people we used to hang out with who were friends of Ryan and Wade were all there.

It was like meeting people when you're older. "Nicole, howa de kids?!" "Ryan, ye sonuvabitch, you still ogglin' over Hot Lips Lucy?! Hey ye got a little, WHOA!, almost slugged ya!! It was always dat right flank you had a problem wit. Gotta woik on it, pal."

I felt a little out of place, to tell the truth. I started out strong, but soon became a little disassociative. It wasn't until some more of the Monroe House brotherhood's inner nucleus started showing up where I felt a little more in the zone.

The reunion of the past, something that will continue throughout the week and next, will be interesting. It will be bittersweet.

It will be with this reunion that I will end this blog. Where I've come from, how I've changed in the last year, where I'll be going. The past and present and future meeting up in a grand party to kick off 2010, what will most likely be one of the most seminal years of my life.

Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra with Jo Stafford -- "Manhattan Serenade"

Resolute in Chance

2009-12-22T20:12:00.007-06:00

I have succumbed to the resolution that Patch has to pack up and leave my house. City officials and authorities operate out of a "if you're disrupting the quality of life of an individual, you are in the wrong". There are no decibel readers in law enforcement and law. The only group holding these machines is Environmental Control, and they only come out when they are enforcing noise ordinances, not as a service to a questioning band member. Even if I'm in the legal limit of 10db's or less, my neighbor could keep complaining and shut us down. I could say "We are totally legal. We are 10db's and less. My friend's decibel reader said so." They'd look at you and say "So what? Shut it off, she keeps complaining to us."

So, yeah, we're leaving.

I just got back from checking out a space just west of downtown that we would share with Solid Gold. It's a pretty cheap option. Not as ideal as my back room, but it works. I have no idea what the band will bite on, but I'm scared that certain members will potentially opt out of Patch completely. Maybe it's me being too anxious about the situation, but that's why this is such a big deal to me.

I would love to be completely confident that Patch is at a comfortable position of having set members and a set space, but that is not the case with this situation. Anything can happen right now.

I hate this. I want resolution. I want to know that we're okay.

Kings of Leon -- "Crawl"

The Dyes of Patch 1

2009-12-21T01:30:00.001-06:00

In these final entries, seeing as though Karmath the Blog has been primarily a personal MP3 journal, I'd like to share the main influences of my songwriting. My "greatest hits" if you will. What with all the MP3 "Best of the Year" lists and everything, I figured I'd show you where I take most of my inspiration from in the music world.

I s'pose I'll start at the back end of inspiration and work my way up.

I love artists who blend a lot of genres together into a hodge podge collage, creating an entirely new sound all their own. They aren't creating a movement, but they are creative enough to show that they are true geniuses. I take a great liking to raw rock, big drums and production. I also love riff rock, heavy recognizable riffs that are both easy to play and easy to remember. Riffs that get stuck in your head.

I'm a fan of music that changes its production from song to song. What happens when you take an electronic music duo production team that makes great heavy sample beats from all sorts of different sources and put them together with a singer/songwriter with a nack for folk/rock/blues/funk/dance/country/experimental music? Genre bender with production bender = Beck.

I consider Beck's best albums to be the ones where he teamed up with The Dust Brothers, best known for the Fight Club soundtrack they scored. These albums include "Odelay", "Midnight Vultures", and "Guero". There are so many different sounds from song to song, it's like a new palette was created for each. They're so interesting to hear and distinguishing and taking in each new timbre of each new song's aural palette is extremely engaging and fun. These albums are what gave me my love for really staying in tune to production and found noises. It keeps albums interesting. You're reinventing yourself with each new song. Beck does this better than any other artist I know.

I try to make all of my songs sound different. I want each record to sound different. I want all sorts of different styles within my music, blending together to create a new whole.

Here's a good example of a quintessential influential Beck song: Derelict from "Odelay". It has samples galore mixed with found, somewhat sloppy noises. It's dark, with a distorted vocal line. Plus, the eastern instruments provide for a sort of drug induced ambience that's not uncommon for Beck. His ridiculousness can sometimes provide for some far out noises and feelings.

So, we've got found noises, a great collage of different genres, great production, and an empathetical feeling due to all. I have no idea what the song is about, but I feel like I do:

Beck -- "Derelict"

M*****

2009-12-20T20:36:00.001-06:00

One of the key elements to Patch is the notion of the Underground. In all of my experience with live and local music, you might be the greatest band in the world, but nobody knows who you are, your shows are going to have little to no crowd. There's no scene for you. This is the hardest element to local music. How to get people to see you time after time after time within the space of a couple months.

My goal is to infiltrate the underground scene. Half of the shows we will do will not be at a traditional venue. There will be a few times when I will ask the boys to pitch in for a noise permit at public places. Free places (I've done enough research on noise ordinances and noise permits recently to outsmart the peeps picking up at 311). Party houses. Secret clubs.

One of these not-so-secret clubs is Medusa. I feel strange telling of its whereabouts, almost like saying "Scottish Play" instead of "Macbeth" while you're in a theatre space. This place is prime Patch space. It's somewhat forbidden, it's dark, it's gross, it's crawling with hipsters ripe for the picking to bang heads with visceral indie rock.

The first show Patch will perform live at will be at Schuyler's new studio space a couple blocks down from my house. It will be small, a few people will be invited. Intimate and stifling. After that, with each Live storyline, there will be a non-traditional venue serving as our performance space. I imagine some places to be parking lots, alleyways, high traffic areas showcasing the nightly jaunts of youngsters and fauxsters.

This will help garner interest in coming to traditional live venues. I'm not spilling the beans on some of the antics we'll be pulling. They will be changing from show to show. That will be half the fun of coming to each show of Patch, shows where I hope to handpick our favorite local bands for bill lineups that would compliment us and compliment them given the theme of the night. That's the ideal, anyway.

So far, what I've been throwing around is the Schematics theme, where different projects are hinted at. Schematics features demos that I hope to rerecord (or use again) that belong on future projects and storylines. "Typosgraphy" and "Switch" belong to one project, "Trachomanic" and "In Hopes to Mend" another, "LCD" on yet another. The live shows will feature these tracks and more, either from strictly live storylines, things I'm working on in the studio currently, or from larger album projects I have planned way down the line. Glimpses. Plans. Schematics to a larger plan . . .

After these, we will start to move in more experimental territory in Live 2.0, doing strictly Karmath material at one show, Omiss at another, Necrotica at another, etc. After that . . . I'm not sure exactly. Bigger stories, I'm guessing. I'm still working on Live 1.0 so I haven't thought too, too far ahead.

Scoping out Medusa last night was another positive step forward. I've got my foot in many doors, and this helps me get through the stress I've been feeling on a daily basis these last two months.

Liars -- "Grown Men Don't Fall In the River, Just Like That"

The Lonely Deaths of Dream Chasers

2009-12-19T13:55:00.003-06:00

One of the most confounding statements we are bombarded with from birth is "Follow your dreams. If you persevere, you will reach your goals."

First: define your dream. If you want to be President, CEO of a company, a rock star, a sports player, a celebrity of some sort, an astronaut, a top dawg lawyer, whatever, there are a ton of hoops you need to jump through.

For becoming any sort of worker you have to pull your weight in school. Now, I do find college to be challenging, but it's easy. You follow the guidelines, it's all written out for you, you've got it. If you really want to make your name known at all, either on campus or post-college . . . that's where things get harder.

You want to be President? The controversies, the extreme amount of opposition from the public, etc. Sports player? Health concerns, your own body, what if you trip and completely screw up your ankle permanently? CEO of a business? Learn how to deal with people hating your guts, people throwing faux love at you to get work, learn how to be a ruthless son of a bitch when it comes to hard decisions. You're going to have to ruin people's lives at times in order to make the business succeed.

For me it's obviously rock star. If it's to be a common, everyday rock cover artist, that's easy. But if it's a vision, a true vision for a new movement in music, I can't tell you the stress I've had from Patch.

The latest battle over the Patch rehearsal space in the back of the Monroe House is one more drop in the bucket o' problems I've faced in the last year. 2009 started out with computer problems with "Schematics" recording. It then went on to having to wait four months for mixing to be started on. Then waiting another two and a half months for mixing to be worked on, now I have to wait a month for mastering to be completed. The real stress comes from the live band. Getting people into the band, clearing out the back space, trying to coordinate all of the band so that they can meet once a week. Now we're being outed by a neighbor. It's one thing after another.

I will not give up on this band. It's seriously my dream. But I'm not going to lie, I have had thoughts of "Should I just give up now? This is getting to be too hard." Of course I won't give up. But if nothing works, and problems keep facing us, when's the time to quit? When does a dream, no matter how hard you've pursued it, become a burden to an individual? When people start saying "You should quit"? When do you start to consider that possibility?

Patch can be huge. It can be known. How many challenges am I going to face to reach the goal of recognition? How many challenges will I face if we are known? A lot of it is on me since it's my vision. My parents ask me, "So, what's the gameplan for you and music? When are you going to quit and go back to school?" I haven't thought about this, to be honest. I'm 25. I'm still in the prime age of becoming a successful rock artist. If I feel like everything I'm doing is failing, then I guess I'll just know when to throw in the towel. But I don't imagine Patch to be a failure. So far, I've just had a lot of speed bumps dealing with outside forces. True tests of skill and merit.

In the research I did before writing a lot of the songs that would appear on "Schematics", I came across the notion of the West's fascination with fantasy and superheroes. Especially action heroes. These characters tend to exhibit true focus and perseverence without much effort. People latch on to that. They love seeing a figure exceed in their beliefs. Problem is, in the real world it's hard to exceed in your beliefs.

I admit, rock star is a 13 year old sort of dream. I'm a young adult still trying to do it. I'm frustrated a lot of the time, and beaten. The pain I feel in life, that is exhibited in Patch's music and performance, mainly comes from Patch itself.

Only something inside me keeps saying "Keep going . . ." I get shot by a rifle. "Keep going . . ." I get run over by a car. "Keep going . . ."

I hope that voice never says "Stop, it's okay," until I've made Patch a national entity that hasn't crashed and burned by flying too high in the celebrity world. I want to end it on my terms. When the time's right.

I guess until then I'll have to get used to the taste of metal from all of the bullets perforating my body from all the opposing forces the world throws at me.

The Flaming Lips -- "See the Leaves"

Setting Fire to the Bridge

2009-12-18T23:22:00.004-06:00

More in the neighbor war:

I wrote a letter. Detailing what the law ordinance was, and what I was planning on doing in the coming months to help out with the situation.

Basically, she took offense to every single bulletpoint. Even coming over to her house she found offense to. Because I said that she should come over to my house to receive schedules of our practices. She said, "You aren't welcome at my house because I have dogs."

How do strangers know this? "The mailman has enough sense, why don't you?" she said to me in a voicemail on my phone. "If you don't want to get attacked, don't come over on my yard."

Oh, damn. She di'nt.

She found it insulting that I would think to buy earplugs and Ibuprofen every month for her. "I can afford my own medicine, and why would I want to put in earplugs in my own home?!"

I retorted when I called her back, "I'm sorry if I offended you. I was merely trying to offer services to the headaches we might induce on your head by playing legally next door. You said you get migraines, and if we were the cause, I wanted to help out."

She won't have any of it. She's done. No more bargaining. My letter was sympathetic (plenty of "I'm trying my best to be neighborly, I want us to remain awesome, so I'm really trying. My house is your house.") and constructive. She referred to it as "your little note" time and time again in both my voicemail and our conversation.

I basically think that any bridge gaping the trough between Nicole and I has been burned, collapsed, and washed down river. No matter what I do, nothing will fix it. We might have shared glances, awkward at best, when I'm outside doing things around the yard, but I've tried. I've done everything.

Except . . .

1) Move out, find a new space. Which costs money and puts my band in jeopardy. I'm not sure they're willing to put down money for a space at this stage in the game. It was a battle for Scotty to be in the band, now on top of that fee there's a new monthly rent fee. Great.

2) Call the cops and really find out if I'm in the legal limit of 10db's within Nicole's house. If we check out fine, then we could keep playing, according to the law. We could stop at 9:00 still, but at this point we could go on till 10:00pm as far as I care.

3) If I wanted to get even (but I don't think it'll come to this) I could call the cops on her for the domestic disputes occurring in the house, the dog biting me on a yard with no proclamation of "Beware of Dog", the other dog she has chasing my roommate down the back alley today, and the barking dogs followed by "BEAR! STOP!!!" But this is a trifle passive aggressive and mean, and I don't play that game.

I'm not sure what to do. I'm in a real pickle here.

The only good thing is I've got some time to deal with this. Patch practices have ceased due to Scotty's month long departure to Maine for Winter Break.

Rage Against the Machine -- "I'm Housin'"

War of the Neighbors

2009-12-17T19:48:00.007-06:00

More in the saga: Neighbor VS Patch

Scotty was practicing tonight in the back for Patch and numerous other projects that he's involved with. He started at 6:30. Was going to practice 'till 8:30.

My irate neighbor with the crazy dog came pounding on the door again at 8:10. I answered it and she let me have it.

"I--I can't do it anymore. My head. My kid and his homework. You're gonna have to stop."

I listened. I said, "I can look for a space, but we're going to have one more practice tomorrow."

She said, "Not if you want the cops involved."

I shut up. I gave her the benefit of me complying to her, not saying I wasn't going to have a practice, but saying "I'll see what I can do."

I called 311 and asked for specifics on the noise issue. They said that noise cannot be louder than a conversation in the complaining neighbor's house. Here's the thing: the noise, when it permeates through our own house, is not louder than a conversation. I talked on the phone with Marta as Scotty wailed away as hard as he could.

I then walked over to the other neighbors' house, the ones with two toddlers residing within. I asked the mom, "Are we bothering you at all? Nicole is pretty irate."

She said, "No! You guys are great! You stop early, you're not too loud. You're fine."

I said, "Okay, would you say our noise is louder than a conversation at all inside the house?"

She shook her head, "No. Nobody's bothered by it. Believe me, we'd let you know. The bass is sometimes heard, but it's not too bad, no."

I said, "So, if a cop comes over and starts questioning me, you'd be okay with me saying that you were totally cool with us, the neighbors with kids, even."

She smiled and said, "Yeah, of course."

I left and walked back home, coming up with a gameplan.

When Nicole comes back over, I'll state the following:

1. Conversation noise level vs. Patch noise. The toddler family said they're fine with it.
2. When the budget allows, I will sound proof the room as much as possible.
3. 9:00 we are always done, at her request. It could be 10:00.
4. When we have enough money, we will get a practice space not in the Monroe House.
5. I will leave schedules of when we will have noise going on in the back. I will have a little envelope marked "Nicole" with my schedule on it each week posted underneath my mailbox. I will not go over to her house risking my ass again with that dog running around.
6. If we truly are talking noise issues, then when cops come over I can bring up the fact that her dog wakes my roommates up at all hours of the night. It barks all hours of the day. Domestic fights and screaming are heard within our walls, the abusive boyfriend's motorcycle is a pain. It goes tit for tat. I'm complying, are you?

If this doesn't work, and cops still pull the plug on us, then we'll move. Until then, I'm resolute that Nicole is irritated and a little crazy as of late. I'm being as neighborly as I can.

I raised renting a space up to Scotty and he said, "That makes me rethink everything." Meaning, he can't afford a space. We're paying his way in the band, he can't pay $50 plus for a space. He'd leave. Fuck, the whole band would!

WHY IS THIS SO HARD?!?!?! I JUST WANT PATCH TO WORRRRRRRK!!!!!! FUCK!!!! I've helped out everyone else, why can't my own fucking band work?! So frustrating and disheartening.

Beck -- "Truckdrivin' Neighbors Downstairs (Yellow Sweat)"

Shitter Was Full

2009-12-16T21:29:00.003-06:00

In honor of the Secret Santa event at Miniapple tonight, a scene from one of my favorite Christmas movies:

Duke Ellington & His Orchestra -- "The Mooche"

Fair Freedom

2009-12-15T08:34:00.002-06:00

Do you remember the age old battle you used to have (if you had it at all) with your K-12 school teachers (if you went to K-12) regarding whether or not they could drink soda pop in front of you in the classroom? My school district had a not-so-major debate on the fairness of teachers drinking soda in front of students when students were not allowed to drink in the classroom. If students couldn't do it, why could the teachers?

Anytime an adult has food at Miniapple kids will ask "Why do you get that?" Even if it's fucking lunch time! You have a candybar or some little treat and they complain to the board of directors. I had a pizza in my hand . . . in the adult prep room . . . and a kid complained "Why do you get that pizza?!" A coworker remarked "Because it's adult pizza. You'd get sick."

You basically have to lie and say some bullshit adult/child differential sickness prevention to get them to shut up about the fact that you're hungry, you haven't had anything to eat, you've been watching kids all day and seeing if they don't choke on their food during lunch so you can't focus on your own food, and they have the audacity to complain about you eating in your own space.

I'm exaggerating my rant here, but I did want to bring up the notion of fairness in children. Right off the bat, little two year olds are questioning "Why?" when it comes to everyone getting an equal share. Early on, fairness equates to getting things, getting the same amount of food or playtime or toys. Kids will freak out if you don't give them an equal amount. Joey got more, I'll raise hell.

This fairness aspect is very Western. The Nurture aspect of Nature vs. Nurture hits hard early with Western children. I imagine Eastern children to be content, or learning to be content, with getting what they get and not putting up a fit if they get less than someone else. We teach that, but we do stress fairness as well. We still say "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit!" All the kids at the school know that about as much as they know the ABC song. Every child recites it from time to time.

As you get older, of course, you start into ethics and morals. The fairness within the judicial system, etc. If a man robs a drug store because he can't afford medicine for his ailing wife, who will surely die, should he go to jail if he's caught? Most children will say "Yes". Most adults will say "No."

How about this? A man who is wrought with pedophilia, but is trying his damndest to keep it in check, goes to therapy to help deter him from his sexual urges toward children. Despite all of what he is seeking, he slips and ends up fondling a six year old's privates. The child's dad is told of what this man did and he gets sentenced to prison.

Is this okay so far? How about when you think of the notion that this man will be labeled as a "Child Fucker" in prison? Pedophiles get ripped apart in prison. A lot get beaten to death or caused extreme psychological pain. Horrible things.

If they survive prison, they are released to a society that hates them to no end. They are announced to the neighborhood of their presence. Their employers and coworkers all know what he did.

If this guy was trying to get help, slipped up . . . is all of this okay?

I think about stuff like this a lot. I have a little bit of empathy for some of these people and child abusers. People who slip up, mind you. The chronic abusers who thrive off of this should be punished and incarcerated and have their names tarnished by the society they sought to undermine. But for those who hate themselves . . . don't you feel they deserve help rather than hate?

Drugs. Liberals want to put drug users into rehab rather than jail. I do. There's no crime, except against yourself. Jail won't help.

What about abusers, murderers, robbers, etc.? It gets confusing. The scale of the crime and whatnot.

But still, anything dealing with children, the West is quick to kick them out of their society, their tribe. It's scary working with children every day, not because of the children, but because of the parents.

Here's something that I hope to God no one takes in the wrong way:

Most men, when having their penis touched in any way, be it by a book or someone sitting on their lap, will naturally become erect because of stimulation. It's like morning wood, it just happens. A lot of guys, after sitting down in class while in school, upon getting up to go to the next class will have an erection. We called it Book Hiding. It's not sexual, this shit happens.

A child sits on a guy's lap. Again, it's not sexual, it just happens. What if a parent picked their child up while their kid was on his lap and they happen to see a bulge sticking out of their pants? What if they go apeshit? What if this guy loses his job and has his name tarnished because of some faulty wiring induced by the human genome?

Society, and I'm mainly talking to liberals, here: you're not as open-armed as you might think. There's a lot of hypocrisy when it comes to equality and fairness. A smart mind thinks about the man robbing the drug store for his wife without any question of whether he should go to jail or not. Kids don't.

In the case of sexual crimes: adults tend to think a lot like kids in this matter. "Send them to jail!"

Something to think about, from a normal, level headed guy who works with children. Calm down a little.

Now granted, I'd rather a Level 1 Sex Offender not move next door to me and my family in the future. But if they do, I'll talk to them about their case and try to understand what happened. I'd then say what I'm comfortable having them do around my children and what I'm not comfortable with. I'd still offer a helping hand, be a friend.

We tend to say "These people are okay but these people aren't!" Yes, even the Equal Rights advocates. Every human being is hard wired to have prejudice against someone they are not comfortable with. Nurture helps keep this in check as you get older. It shows that our society doesn't "Nurture" true equality and rights like it constantly boasts in its rhetoric.

This is the true aspect of politics that pisses me off. Not wedge issues. They mean squat compared to the real nasty stuff. This gets into the psychology of the people, and I feel most people are pretty angry all of the time. It makes me a little upset. Fuels my art, I guess.

But still . . .

Pearl Jam -- "Do the Evolution"

Saline Measures

2009-12-14T22:48:00.007-06:00

I've dabbled in Neti Pot here and there. This year I've had a chronic stuffy sinus system. I first did Neti in May. Today I started it up again, another means of trying to shake off an illness of some kind that has stayed since mid-October.

For those who don't know what Neti Pot is, it's not Marijuana related. It's not medicinal. It's basically a torture device version of Saline Solution.
It's a little pot you stick up your nose. You fill it with warm water and salt, tip your head as you stick the tip in your nose, and you have salt water basically go up one nostril and out the other. Sounds easy enough.

The first time I did it I thought I was going to die. This is why people hold their noses when they jump into a pool. Water rushes into your sinus cavities, and if you're not currently breathing out of your mouth you will definitely cough and swallow the water. Snot and mucus come gooping out of every facial orifice. Your face will look akin to the Snorkel Face, where the mouth is pushed out in a fish-like manner by the snorkel mask. The prettiest face on the planet will be void of beauty by the Snorkel Face, and the Neti Pot, for that matter.

I started to get the hang of it on my second try. The fourth time Taylor came in on me doing it and stopped. "What the hell are you doing?" With a nose full of water and snot, I managed "Neta Pot. Et clens da nohsd." "Fucking weeeeirrrd. It looks like torture."

At first it is. Currently, I'm basking in a cleaner feeling nose. It hasn't been vacated of overabundant snot, but it's refreshing.

Oh, and you have to make sure that you bend your head down between your knees after you're done, or else you'll retain water in your upper sinuses. Days later you could be in public and bend down to pick up something from the ground and water will spontaneously spill out of your nose. It's kind of embarrassing but funny. I had it happen to me on the playground at Miniapple in the sandbox. I bent to pick up a shovel and water spilled out of my nose. The kids stared in horror as I just laughed and waited for the dripping to stop.

I recommend the Neti Pot. It might do ye some gud.

Tool -- "The Pot"

Kinda Like Suicide

2009-12-13T23:30:00.008-06:00

Patch's second live rehearsal took place today.

It was four instead of five. This worked to our advantage today, as we got down to meticulous details and nitpicking. It'll be easier to get the fifth up to speed one on one for what we're currently delving into.

One of the more interesting notes: all my life, and maybe this is my insecurity talking, my initial ideas for music and performance have always been met with opposition or a scoffing look. After I show people what I want to do by a recording or through working out a project, then people tend to dig the work. Not all the time, but usually.

Today, at the tail end of the rehearsal, we did our first collaborative work: a Typosgraphy intro for the live show. I was wrestling with whether or not it would be strictly drums and vocals or if guitar and bass should join in on the fun. The band, now immersed within my head and the world of Patch and its vision, is becoming very vocal on what they like and don't like. We have constructive discussions on the work.

Adri left to hunt and gather by the time we really got down to brass tacts with the intro. Scotty, Greg and I put our heads together to come up with a buildup that wouldn't spill the beans on the hugeness of the actual Typosgraphy song. But it needed to be a buildup full of intensity. Initially, they scoffed at the idea. I scatted the song (that never goes over well, in every situation, doing the entire song by mouth makes the idea even shittier. But what else am I going to do other than record an entire fucking demo?) and they paused afterward, collecting thoughts. "I . . . uh . . . I don't know, man." Me: "Just try it out. See how it goes."

By this time Adri was "Alright, I'm out!" Never introduce ideas at the end of a long rehearsal. The rest of us pushed on despite my mistake. I said to Scotty, "Come up with developments. A new layer, each one more busy than the last." He came up with five, he suggested a pause at the end of the song. We played through a couple times.

I thought that the developments with snare were too short. I wanted more. So I said, "Four developments. Nix one of the tom developments. Two toms, two snare. I'll point when you go to the next one." We ran through it, we liked it.

I asked, "Do you guys think we need any sort of electronic ambience?"

Both said, "Yeah, I'd like that."

I said, "A low tone that could fluctuate between straight sine and modulated -- GASP! 'In Hopes'--"

Greg interrupted: "I was just going to suggest that!"

The beginning of "In Hopes to Mend" has a low rounded sine tone from Greg's MicroKorg that's hypnotic and inviting, interspersed with granular interference from Greg's Kaoss Pad. Unfortunately, the Kaoss Pad is fucking up currently. Voices don't put out any sound, others put out too much sound. The volume on a power mixer for a PA system could be .1db up from absolute zero and drum loops could blast the speaker's high frequencies out to high heaven (which is exactly what happened last month. That PA speaker is in the shop as I type.). So we need to make a voice on the MicroKorg that can have fluctuating modulation accessed by a modulation wheel.

We started making the voice from scratch, but I needed to get to a Mastering session with Schuyler in a half hour. We passed on that and ran the idea one more time. We loved it. We were all smiling in unison, glints in our eyes. It'll be a good opener, I think . . .

The direction we're going in seems to be pretty fruitful.

Soundgarden -- "Like Suicide"

Smokey and the McMuffin

2009-12-12T13:13:00.005-06:00

I looked at the time. 10:09am. The sweet sense joining of taste and smell with the promise of faux wakefulness was calling. I thought. In need, I thought.

Coffee. Food would be good, too.

Coffee and a Sausage McMuffin. A number 3 breakfast meal. It sounded right. It sounded pure.

I tied my shoes whilst donning my pajamas. I ventured out into the cold ("Dammit, my name's not Robert!"). Yes, blog and song writing, fueled by the fires of McCafe. Dammit . . . it was perfect.

I looked at the time. 10:16. Fourteen minutes left on the breakfast menu. Thoughts of "Big Daddy" permeated my skull.

It was a race against time. I didn't want to be in the same disappointed shoes I've come to loathe time and time again as I walked up to the counter as they rotated the menu. "Do you by any chance have any leftover McMuffins of any sort?" "No sir, we've moved on to lunch, now."

Which begs the question: why can't McDonald's have an anytime breakfast menu? They know the specialness of their breakfast, the secret lust of biscuits and sausage, hashbrown sticks and coffee/orange juice. 10:30 is too early to stop breakfast. All I'm asking is for a little bit of a grace period, much like landlords and rent. Yeah, the first of the month is when the rent's due, but it's not technically a problem until the 5th. Why can't breakfast "stop" at 10:30, but be available for any latecomers until 11:30 or 12:00? Or, stop breakfast at actual lunch time, which is 11:30. 10:30 for lunch, are you kidding me?! Yeah, for old people, but your young adults are getting up on the weekend at that time, man. Brunch is the new breakfast. And if I happen to be on a lunch break at that time, fuck, I wouldn't mind having breakfast for lunch. Breakfast food is more awesome than lunch food, anyway. Why McDonald's, why?

This stream of consciousness clouded my skull as I traversed the slick, icy streets of Northeast. I looked at my gas. Way below E. DAMN! Look at the phone for the time. DAMN! 10:23. I stopped for gas.

It was like Smokey and the Bandit, cat and mouse, a race against time that became ever more seminal with each passing second. I ran to put the nozzle into my fuel tank. The pump stopped shortly after I put it into the automatic shut off mode. No. NO! Time: 10:25. Damn the automatic, go manual, you fool! Press!!!! $20 worth. GO! Yeah, good thinking, no receipt. Drive off. 10:26. DRIVE!!!

Round the corner into the Quarry area. Golden Arches on the horizon. The sweet aroma of plastic-like buns and french fries entered my nose. Don't taunt me with your lunch, you Siren! I crave biscuit.

I cut someone off in the other lane, plowed into the drive-through and ordered a number 3, hoping I wouldn't be met with a lunch number 3. A Sausage McMuffin. Lord, I could taste it already. McCafe as well.

I ordered at 10:29. I prayed.

I got to the pick up window. They handed me my food. I looked into the bag.

SWEET HEAVENLY BLISS I GOT A SAUSAGE MCMUFFIN!!!

I drove home in a fit of happiness. I sang a song of wanting to eat pure grease.

I parked, entered my home. I unwrapped my McMuffin, sipped my coffee. Turned on YouTube to watch One Day as a Lion, and bit into my sandwich.

Something wasn't right. Something was missing. I looked.

THEY FORGOT TO PUT THE SAUSAGE ON THE SANDWICH!!!!!

The goddamn pursuee got away . . .

Creedence Clearwater Revival -- "Commotion"

Open Relationships

2009-12-11T12:30:00.000-06:00

The Celibate Man

He is not celibate. Only available.

The possibilities are endless. But they remain possibilities.

Lovers of the past stand tall, waiting to engage in their own futures, their own time. Standby for the standbys, yet this countdown to ignition hasn't been started.

I'm sorry to you, I am, I am. But I am celibate today. You don't have to be.

The music, the dream is my lover. And I have possibilities with flesh, but my voice, my planning, my dreams . . . I caress them.

The Celibate Man is not a man of true celibacy. His chastity belt is possibility.

He doesn't act. He merely sets up chance.

He has a contract yet he doesn't sign. "Sit on it awhile," he says.

Nobody stays celibate for long. Ether turns tangible faster than you realize.

Portishead -- "Requiem for Anna (Un Jour Comme Un Autre)"

Little Lambs

2009-12-10T23:44:00.000-06:00

What I'm about to say is split with pride and embarrassment.

I played live music to the largest crowd I have ever had tonight. That's the good news.

The bad news is: it was for the Miniapple Christmas Program at St. Lawrence Church. The church was packed. We played Beatles songs: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Hey, Jude". The crowd loved it.

My biggest crowd has been a goddamn preschool program. Sigh . . .

Still, the little tykes were cute. And I had fun fraternizing with parents, staff, and a post-program wine convo hit the spot. It was a good night.

Belles of Skin City -- "Like Lambs to the Riot"

Hi, My Name is Robert

2009-12-09T11:24:00.000-06:00

When a new season comes upon me, it's like it was always there. It's like, "Oh, hey, old friend, didn't I just see you yesterday?" Winter tends to be the most hand-in-hand with this sort of thinking. The USA weather patterns dumped a shit load of snow on us yesterday and today, and it's like I never said goodbye to snow to begin with.

This probably has to do with the fact that I'm constantly thinking of winter and snow . . . and how much I hate it. When it gets here, it's like a recurring wart on the bottom of my foot. Like constipation. Oh, I'm familiar with these ailments, and when they reappear it's like they were never gone.

Cold is like stubbing your toe.

Cold is like the mornings your contact lenses don't sit properly in your eyeball.

Cold is like the sliver you, by accident, pushed farther into your finger with tweezers and can only come out when the body itself pushes it out.

Cold is like a bad hair day.

Cold is the caffeine withdrawal headache you get when you can't procure a cup of joe before work.

We all act shocked and surprised when cold comes around. It's not novel shock and surprise. We all know the pain of winter in Minnesota. But we all know the pain of stubbing your toe on the coffee table as you get up to go the bathroom . . . and it shocks us when we do it.

Fuck you, Winter. Welcome back, take your seat. You're like a heckler on the bus that recognizes me and thinks my name is Robert and I helped you fix a boat in Lake Tahoe and you ask me for money and I don't have it and I feel guilty that I'm not being more charitable but shit man you've been doing this since I've known you on this bus and seriously if you ask me again I'm going to tell the driver to let you off because you're in my bubble but I probably won't since I'm kind of a chicken shit when it comes to confrontation so I don't move away to someplace warmer since I'm content to live in complete and utter discomfort come November through April.

. . . I guess I could always buy a new coat, though . . . "Bah, here's a couple quarters. Get something to eat with them, man."

The Kills -- "M.E.X.I.C.O."

St. David

2009-12-08T23:20:00.001-06:00

My PC has been through a lot. It's akin to a soldier, a decorated one, who has been called into the line of fire time and time again. He did his service in WWII, Korea, Vietnam. He then gets called in to do Top Secret Navy Seals work, spy work, hush hush huge diplomatic ordeals. He's scarred, beaten, hard.

That's my computer. Betty, I call it. I name all of the broken machines in my life Betty . . . one could argue that I could call America Betty from now on . . . but I wouldn't hit a woman . . . what?

Anyway, it seems as if Betty needs a brain transplant. The hard drive is dying, apparently. On its last legs. This weekend I saved and transferred all of the necessary files onto my portable hard drive. Now I wait for the lord and savior David Nehring to raise my vessel from the dead . . . again.

St. David, I wait with baited breath . . . what?

Stabbing Westward -- "Ungod"

Fake Plastic Trees

2009-12-07T22:36:00.006-06:00

Christmas, or rather, this time of year, is a subjective era. It is what you make it out to be.

I find that if you bad mouth Christmas, people will get offended. Not because they're Christian, you're going against their beliefs, none of that. It's something else.

People take Christmas very personally. I for one like Christmas. It makes me want to be close to people. But again, at the same time, it's like going to the prom. This is it. Your only chance. You've thought about this night your whole high school career thus far and nothing should go wrong.

Guess what, it does. And both my proms turned out to be horrible because of that way of thinking. The first one because of extenuating circumstances, the second one was my fault.

I hype Christmas up to be a failure . . . and it turns out okay, better than I had thought. I pay homage to the old anti-consumerist ideals of my teenage years, but I don't beat a dead horse, or reindeer, in this case. I try to be as low key and "with the flow" as I can be because I (shhh) secretly want December 25th to be magical.

That's the truth. That's what everyone wants.

That's why it's such a weird time. There's heightened stress, heightened want of love, pheromones reign high, disappointment, happiness, etc. The collective unconscious of the West is creating a gingerbread deck of cards that can fall at the flick of a wrist for some people . . . people like me.

I want the big family get-together. I want the girlfriend who I'm sure will be my wife to stand next to me in the photo. I want my brother to accept me for who I am and to stand on the other side of me. I want my parents to be together, to have not divorced, and to have the tree in the background, with both the ornaments I gathered at my dad's house and my mom's house over the years adorned on the most glorious tree you could imagine. I want my extended family to be in the picture as well, and I want all of the family politics (each side hates the other) to not exist. I want my dad to also accept me and to have that fatherly hand on my shoulder, so that when I looked at that Christmas family dinner photo I'd know that was the year my dad came to understand the boy he raised into a man. I want all of that.

All of those don't exist, though. My house is broken.

And because of that . . . I don't want anything.

That way I'll be happy with this fucking holiday.

Nine Inch Nails -- "The Four of Us Are Dying"

P A T C H LIVE

2009-12-06T22:17:00.001-06:00

PATCH had its first OFFICIAL live rehearsal today. Official because of all the members being in the same place at the same time for the first time. Plus, this should be the final, determined lineup, as far as I know.

PETER

MATT

GREG

ADRI

SCOTTY

Go HERE for the rest of the photos from the first rehearsal. The link is from the official Patch Facebook profile.

Radiohead -- "15 Step"

Ethereal Awakenings

2009-12-05T21:37:00.001-06:00

Have I finally put this band together?

Have I finally turned this dream into something I can touch?

Something I can hear?

Something I can see?

Something I hope you'll love . . .

The Flaming Lips -- "Watching the Planets"

The Home Stretch

2009-12-04T20:34:00.002-06:00

We are coming to a close on the Karmath blog. Getting down to the wire.

What haven't I talked about that I've always wanted to talk about, but has never quite happened on a daily happening in 2009? Or didn't seem important enough to talk about as of yet?

What about some meta writing? Some "behind the scenes" info on the behind the scenes blog.

FACTOID 1: I've grown to groan at this blog on certain days. I love the blog, I'm proud of it, but there are just some days where I don't feel up to writing anything. Nothing important happened, nothing of note. I have days where I sit around and do nothing, or I do the same thing for a number of days. A project, perhaps. Tonight, in fact, I'm sick with a fever, and all I'm doing is catching up on blogs . . .

FACTOID 2: This entry is actually being written on December 7 instead of December 4, so that little bit about being sick with a fever today . . . I had a fever three days ago, but I wrote it as if . . . you know. If I've been busy, I have to play catchup (I think on the actual Friday, I only got up to the TSA security rant). I've come to realize that I don't have time to do this anymore. I'm sticking with it until the end of the month, of course (why stop when I'm so close to the finish?), but with the coming year and with Patch . . . expect fewer blogs. Well, it won't be daily. This was an experiment, to do it every day of the year. When creativity gets the better of me, "Welcome to Circadia" will fall victim to my prose/poetry/audio/video/photography. So . . . not all of the entries here are "true" entries, but the things that they talk about are all true things that happened on the true date. They just . . . were written a couple days later.

FACTOID 3: For you Facebook note readers, you do realize that this was all meant to be seen at karmath2009.blogspot.com, right? It's an MP3 blog. You're supposed to listen to the MP3's and watch videos. You don't get that on Facebook.

FACTOID 4:
The main purposes of Karmath: The Blog

--See the birth of Patch. From recording to practicing. No end product here, though. That will all be happening in 2010.
--MP3's. These remind me that I've lived a day. A song comes on, I lived that day. 365 songs will have been posted, each coinciding with a day. I'll always think of that certain day, whether it was the day I crashed my car, started Patch rehearsals, finished Schematics recording, had sex with a beautiful woman, got dumped by that same beautiful woman (most likely for writing about it here), or sat around in my PJ's watching X-Files all day, I'll think of those days by the particular song coinciding with those events.

FACTOID 5: Initially, I was thinking I'd have fake stories to tell, much along the lines of the Polish Sausage sauna storyline stemmed from my old roommate Marta's parents' sauna in Eden Prairie. I'm kind of disappointed more haven't come to fruition. I'll try to have at least one by the end of the year. I would have liked to have had a good combination of fake and true, a quasi-Dylan-esque blog. You wouldn't be able to tell the real from the false. But this has been more about honesty. "Circadia" will delve into this realm more, since it will be a public blog. This will go private shortly into 2010.

FACTOID 6: I'm also surprised I haven't dealt with more risque topics. There have been a couple entries where I've gotten a response from a more than normal number of people. The "What Do Women Want?" rant rings a bell. Also (uh, I'll be dealing with this one on Monday, I mean today, I mean Monday!!), the recent "Empty Presents" entry sparked a little discussion with my coworker about Christmas and how my viewpoint made her angry. I've had some "suicidal" depressed notes as well, most likely following a breakup or bad news. But there are only a few that have caused a scuffle. I was scared initially that I would eventually start pissing people off left and right on some of my rants. But I haven't ranted too too much. I haven't done much political ranting, either. Of politics, much should be said, but I never felt it necessary to talk about, unless it dealt with Obama's election back in January.

I've also balanced the candid/anonymous beam: how much should be said about these people? They were involved with this interesting anecdote, is it going to piss them off that I said these things? I've found that people OUTSIDE of the situation got more concerned with me talking about certain people than the people involved. When I was first seeing a girl back in June, I felt very strongly about her. Couldn't stop thinking about her, really. I wrote a poetic entry about our first date at Nye's ("Glittered Booths") and another old roommate Taylor commented "You shouldn't be talking about that. What if she sees it? You'll kill the moment." Maybe he was right. But now I'll always remember that awesome moment with her. Maybe she will, too, because of the entry.

I'll have a little more metawriting for the last entry. For now . . . enjoy this while it lasts . . .

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour -- "Around the Bend"

This Voyeur's Limits

2009-12-03T23:35:00.002-06:00

One of the interesting elements of Napoleon Dynamite was its blending of decades and their respective styles. The clothes the characters wore were of the entire 80's palette. The music was an 8-Bit quality keyboard soundtrack. The walls were of 70's wood stylings. The gangster cousins of Pedro were of modern times, hobknobbing around in a hydraulic convertible. Napoleon jammed out to 90's pop (Jamiroquai) during his routine in front of the school. It's an interesting movie because you can't place the setting, time or city.

I think this is the same sort of scenario when it comes to strip clubs.

I visited Deja Vu for the first time tonight. We were there for research. Not that kind of research.

I went on a date there. My date happens to be doing an ethnography study on strip culture. She asked if on the day that we were going to be hanging out if I wouldn't mind accompanying her to a strip club. I said "Well . . . alright."

I did feel a little bit like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate during the scene where he takes the younger Ms. Robinson out on a date. To try to get rid of her, having already had relations with her mother, he takes her to a strip club. A date to a strip club. That's a first.

But it was interesting. It was extremely uncomfortable. Not the date, but Deja Vu. I hate this place.

This place is stuck in a time warp much like Napoleon Dynamite. You enter into a hallway resembling a convention ward in a hotel. The carpet is dark, the walls are dark, the lights are dimmed (very 70's feeling). A bouncer dressed in a tuxedo tells you to step behind red velvet ropes. He asks, "Have you ever been here before?" He tells you the rules. Nine dollar cover, nine dollar pop drinks (no alcohol). The nine dollars will get you free refills all night long. "Go in and enjoy yerselves," he says as he steps out of the way.

You enter into the main stage area (passing a heavily made-up woman leaning seductively against the wall, pursing her lips. I thought of another scene in The Graduate: "One word, son, are you ready? Plastics."), somewhat reluctantly falling into another velvet rope trap as you go up to the bar. After you get your nine dollar pop, you are spit out into the seating area. Tons of tables with two seats and a candle on top, couches along the back wall, and a long table at the front surrounding the stage look on three brass poles coming from the heavens (the second floor). Lone dancers strut their moves (the only bearable part of the Vu proceedings, I felt) with full on arials and flashes (they go full out nude sans their two foot stilletto heeled shoes). After three songs, the entire crew of ladies come onstage, awkwardly looking sexy in the most god awful "sexy" costumes on the planet.

Nothing's changed. Nowhere do heels that large exist other than strip clubs and sex shops. I have a clothing fetish, but those heels just look plain stupid. The costumes are all cliched: school girl, sports girl, cut T-shirt showing bottom boob (which is somewhat alluring, I guess), swim suits, lingerie from 1995. It's boring.

Although, a woman came up to us in a sheer gown she made herself. That was nice. We commented to her that we liked the gown, and she told us all about what she does for a living besides working the Vu. She is a seamstress.

When these women come up to the stage it's a signal that they're about to work the crowd for sales. They step off into the crowd (of which there were four other men, sad, older, alone, somewhat overweight. Creepy.) and pick their victims. The ones that bite go off to private sectors (the aforementioned loungey couches along the outer wall) to have lap dances. Apparently, you also go upstairs for a private dance, but if you're really willing to spluge (uh, figuratively), you can get a private BED for $90 on the third floor.

We kept having women come up behind us. "Are you guys interested in a private dance at all?" We kept looking at eachother smiling. "No, I think we're okay." "Okay, sure thing, honey."

It was uncomfortable to have all of the women onstage, making eye contact with me from time to time, and have them come over to ask to have fake sexual encounters. If I was drunk, really drunk, maybe. But I can't do that. I need more. I need to have something else underlying my sexual encounters.

I need the possibility of a relationship. Otherwise I feel fake. I feel like I'm disowning myself. I always want to be the best guy sexually. I'll be your best. How can I be the best when I can't do anything and I'm coughing up $20? It's boring and pointless to me. If someone else is paying, sure, I'll play along. But then I'll want to be the best customer, the guy that very politely says, "You were wonderful. I really liked it when you did this and this." Basically, I'd like to give the girls a different scenario than what they do normally. Be the best customer.

I'd want to talk to them. If it costs $20, so be it. At least it will be a customer they'll remember. I wouldn't need a lapdance. I'm good with sitting and talking.

Because there you open up the gates to a friendly relationship outside of the complex if both so desired.

I would not by any means act like Clive Owen in "Closer":

We sat for maybe a half hour before feeling uncomfortable enough to leave. I'll go there again, but only with a large group. And only if I'm properly schnockered so as not to brood on the uncomfortable nature of all the girls awkwardly thrusting onstage with vicarious men/women staring at them.

Whew, that place gives me the creeps . . .

NERD -- "Lapdance (Trent Reznor Remix)"

Empty Presents

2009-12-02T11:13:00.001-06:00

Work work work.

Because of this, let's reflect on the current situation beriddling our society. Let's talk about Christmas.

The media surrounding Christmas tends to confuse me. It's hard for me to grasp the concept of a song written for the sole purpose of celebrating a holiday. You're only supposed to listen to it in November and December. After that, it seems empty and meaningless, if not downright creepy, to listen to the song in the "off" months.

Frankly, Christmas music sucks. You wouldn't listen to the music other than in those two months, that tells you something. It's interesting to listen to "empty" music. If Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" came on at the supermarket in July, you'd think "Why are they playing this? It doesn't mean anything right now!"

Music that is empty except for two months. We find it acceptable to play that music because all of a sudden, the music is flooded with meaning. Memories, family, lights, sleigh rides, horses, Santa, cookies, malls . . .

Because the music is empty most of the time, I can't help but think that it's all weak music. I hear this music and I cringe a little. Yeah, it brings me back, but there's something wrong about it, right? Something off.

Christmas movies tend to be the same way, but I find them to be more acceptable. A Christmas Carol is good, but it's probably the most Christmassy movie I can think of. That, and The Grinch.

A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation are both strictly Christmas movies, but I can bear them. It's a Wonderful Life . . . it doesn't have to be a Christmas movie. It only takes place on Christmas at the end of the movie.

The one movie that makes me utterly confused, but not angry, is The Nightmare Before Christmas. Is it a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie? Halloween movies are anytime movies, but Christmas movies are like Christmas music, you can only play them two months out of the year or something is off. This particular movie is a Christmas movie with Halloween flair.

It is the only Christmas movie that is acceptable to watch year round.

It's like the message of the movie transcends into the emptiness of Christmas pop culture, turning what should be meaningless in July into something of pure delight filled with wholesome empathetical viewing.

What's also strange about this movie is the counterculture it has started. The typical "goth" high schoolers listen to Tool, Type O Negative, Marilyn Manson, and flaunt Nightmare Before Christmas flair.

What I find interesting is that Manson and Nightmare seem to be the most prevalent in this sub-culture's clothing. Manson has recorded a remake of "This is Halloween", the first song of Nightmare. What's interesting is that the Antichrist Superstar has gone hand in hand with one of the biggest corporate entities of the planet, Disney. While I love Disney parks and Pixar, I don't particularly subscribe to the doctrine of Disney Inc. I'm disappointed that Manson, the most eloquent anti-establishment lyrical writer that I know of, has opted to stoop to this level of creativity, going against what he wrote about for some 15 years. It seems like he's given up.

This "goth" sub-culture is also empty. Year round. They have no statement. They are read as anti-establishment but they represent Disney. It's like having Mickey Mouse on their clothes. They have no clue. All I can think is that they don't know what their point in life is at the moment of wearing those clothes. Jnco's and dog leashes and Airwalks and long stringy hair. This gets to me, moreso than Christmas pop.

Empty messages. You find hope in a great work of art only to find it lost on the people who flaunt the advertisments for that great art the most. It seems that this happens everywhere in pop culture . . . coughCHRISTIANITYcough . . .

And what's the holiday that Christians flaunt the most?

It's all subjective. The humble man reaps the most happiness, and I have fun with my family and friends with Christmas, but still . . . this time of year makes me uncomfortable.

Fake. Empty. Lost.

Vic Chesnutt -- "We Hovered with Short Wings"

Operation Within the Spokes

2009-12-01T23:01:00.000-06:00

We found another hopeful, the missing fifth.

Fingers crossed.

Ruby Throat -- "Barebaiting"

The Transition of Madness

2009-11-30T10:31:00.000-06:00

November has been the busiest month of the year.

It started off with lunch meetings and random sitdowns with different musicians. It then snowballed into planning. Then sample work. Then computer problems dealing with editing software in order to do sampling and recording. Setting up the practice area in the back to function at the most basic level for the band during auditions. The actual auditions (drummers), with my anxiety to do the right thing, be a good band leader, stay organized and on top of the game. Walk the line between professional and amateur band, where does the money go, who gets paid, when and where do we play? Find a drummer but then lose a guitarist, write new material, write tabs . . .

The day job has been hectic, too. There's always a reason to stay late, especially when working the closing shift. So, it bites into ample Patch time. I wish I could become an assistant again. More responsibility, but more time afterward. I'm content with Miniapple currently. It beats any other job, right now. There's hardly any preparation, it's pretty low key. It's fun to play with the kids. Unfortunately, if you're sick and needing personal time, or just some space, the job doesn't afford you that. So, stress accumulates, I get depressed, yaddah yaddah yaddah.

How to fix that? By finding new romance. Unfortunately, I haven't been very present. I feel bad. My mind is elsewhere, tired, stressed, and broken. Things are picking up careerwise, which is to say Patch is turning into an entity now. It's only going to get more insane.

December should prove to be more of the same. Constant work work work. On top of that, Christmas' hullaballoo will throw down a ton of stress on top of the Patch stress pile.

Am I ready for all of this?

Liars -- "Mr., You're On Fire, Mr."

Within the Spokes

2009-11-29T21:24:00.001-06:00

Dustin's out on his own accord. The other four are in.

Looking for a fifth . . .

The Hives -- "Tick Tick Boom"

Food for Driving

2009-11-28T20:53:00.003-06:00

I left Milwaukee a day earlier than expected. This meant that it was time to pay my dad a visit on my way home, driving through the outer suburbs of Milwaukee.

The last time I visited my dad and stepmom, they had grilled me on Patch, and said that they were uncomfortable with me saying and doing the things that I had been saying and doing with "Schematics". I left feeling really disgruntled. I had called my grandma and she sympathized with me. "I don't get your art either, but I accept it. I know you're not a dark person."

So, my dad is going to be receiving all of my Patch projects for free, but he'll never appreciate it the way that I'd want him to. My mom loves what I'm doing.

This visit, however, I was on my A-Game. Maybe it's because I've truly felt like I've changed since Halloween (drugs CAN be used for good), and because I've been managing, doing Patch nonstop since the beginning of November. I really haven't had a moment's rest, save for this trip. But not really. The trip was constantly full of activity.

We talked Patch Live instead of Patch music. They didn't grill me at all, just agreed with me and gave me advice on what to do with the current Live situation. There are a lot of questions circulating about the status of the current band members. One wants out if one stays in, basically.

I realized that my parents may not necessarily agree with the message of a demon fly within my brain screaming "I'll fucking bleed you" over and over, but at least they'll give me advice on hard decisions.

I left feeling good and able to conquer the hardships of starting this little band from the ground up. We're still in limbo . . .

Zaza -- "Sooner or Later"

TSA: Tricks of Simulated Authenticity

2009-11-27T21:53:00.000-06:00

Today we flew back to Milwaukee.

There are a couple of things that make me go on tirades. Rants galore. One: the song "Proud to Be an American". Nothing can be said, it speaks for itself. There's just a natural reaction within me that makes me dry heave whenever I hear it. It's cliche to comment on it. It's just a fucking stupid song.

Two: TSA Airport Security.

Why the single-serving liquid containers? I always forget this tidbit when I fly. I stupidly pack my regular big bottle servings of shaving cream, mouth wash, shampoo, etc. Are we going to make bombs? If someone wanted to, they would. What if someone had a bowl of gasoline at home and dissolved tons of styrofoam popcorn pieces in it until it thickened into napalm? You could dump that shit into various single-serving products and use them against the crew. Oh, with the four books of MATCHES that you're allowed to bring onboard, you could pretty much bring the plane down.

With 9/11, the terrorists wanted to strike terror into the hearts of Americans and the Western World. Why do we give them the benefit of us seeming like we're terrified of terrorism by having heightened faux security in our airports? They've won. Even if 9/11 was from the "inside", again, we're giving them the benefit of basking in a 1984 mentality. We feel comforted by this security, for some reason. Yet, going through it is terrifying. I am terrified by TSA, not going to lie. I knew my bag was going to be opened this time around because of a Roland drum sampler being nestled amongst my dirty underwear. I hate that they have the right to do that. At least they had to root through my dirty underwear to get to it. I take pleasure in that thought.

If there was true intent within a passenger to hijack a plane, nothing would stop them. The plastic cup you get mid-flight could be ripped to become an eye-stabbing weapon. The matches you're allowed to bring onboard could be used to light the magazines in the seat pouches, the sick bags as well.

I don't get TSA. Soldiers can go up to the front of the line as a Thank You for their service. I don't gripe and grovel at this, but it makes me think of that wretched song, "Proud to Be an American". TSA and this song go hand in hand. There's something odd about traveling nowadays, and I can't put my finger on it.

It feels like we're trying to cover up for a past mistake by acting tough and overbearing. It feels unneccesary. We've been terrorized, and the next instance of terrorism won't come from air traffic. We're half expecting that. It will be from something else entirely.

Malls, schools, Grand Central Station, convention centers. Places where, guess what, security is minimum.

I hate playing into dress-up games. TSA is a mandatory tea party without any real tea provided. If they had tea maybe I'd buy into it.

The Raveonettes -- "Attack of the Ghost Riders"

My Thank You's Go Out to Russia

2009-11-26T21:45:00.000-06:00

A centerpoint of conversation over a very splendid Thanksgiving dinner:

These are real bears. Trained for the Russian Circus. I almost threw up my turkey, I was laughing so hard.

Grizzly Bear -- "Deep Sea Diver"

Mecca

2009-11-25T20:47:00.001-06:00

1990

I woke up early, wanting to play a little After Burner on Sega Genesis before having Cheerios. I was wearing Batman pajama's. I could get to the fourth level before dying, an accomplishment for a six year old who didn't have a gaming system at his home.

My mom and I were on vacation in Los Angeles, California. We were visiting my uncle in his apartment in Huntington Beach. He was still single. This was a big deal to me because the notorious big screen TV that projected my Mach 3 forays into enemy aviation combat was still in the living room. After the marriage three years later, the TV would be moved to the garage, a not-so-fun place for a kid to hang out in, especially when the uncle had no other children inspiring him to spruce the garage up into a play area.

I remember my mom dressing me up in a Hawaiian button up shirt and blue khaki shorts. I had a typical early 90's hat, complete with pastel orange, pink, and green colors. We were going to a very special place that day.

We were going to Disneyland. My mom and me.

I had never been on any rollercoaster before. Never been to an amusement park save for the Wisconsin State Fair midway where I did the minor circular kiddie rides and fun houses. I remember being completely intrigued with rollercoasters, watching them on TV. I was really itching to go on one, but nothing that extreme.

The first ride we went on was immediately off of Main Street in Tomorrowland. Star Tours. I had seen Star Wars on TV, and was completely taken by the animatronic C-3PO and R2D2 representations. I didn't believe they were there (one of the perks of going with small children to Disney parks is that they believe they are actually seeing Mickey, going into space, shrinking down to a centimeter in size to go into a body to find a splinter, etc.), but I was loving every minute of it. The simulator itself blew me away. I really enjoyed it.

It was a precursor, a pre-staging, for one of the most influential moments of my life. My mom said, "Let's do Space Mountain!" I said, "What's that?" She pointed to a funny looking building down the pathway. "You'll like it."

That's all she said. "Is it scary?" I asked.

"No."

We rode an escalator up into a queue area. It was early in the morning, so the line wasn't very long. I remember blindingly going along with my mom through spaceship hallways. I remember catching a glimpse of the loading area and realizing that it was a rollercoaster. I said to my mom, "You said this wouldn't be scary!"

"Just try it."

So I did.

I remember being strapped in between my mom's legs, and going into the lift hill area. Lights beamed everywhere. I was terrified. But in a good way.

That happy terror turned to complete and utter confusion as we went into the mountain, the main rollercoaster area. Inside the funny building is a rollercoaster completely in the dark, save for projections of stars and asteroids moving around and around the outer walls and track supports. The ride glided along, then dropped violently.

It was at this point that I lose track of memory. I remember being angry, I remember not being afraid but more thrilled. I was still scared, to some degree, but I knew I would live. It was an intense ride.

My first rollercoaster was Space Mountain. A ride completely in the dark, surprising you with drops you never knew were there. Thanks Mom.

We got off the ride, and I remember being really angry with her. "You said it wasn't scary!" I yelled. "I didn't know, Peter," she replied.

Anyone who knows me knows that this attribute of my mom, playfully bullshitting people to go along with an experience like Space Mountain, or any other fun but uncomfortable situation, has been instilled in me. I credit Space Mountain to be the main instigator of this attribute.

I made her promise to not take me on any other rollercoasters. She said fine.

We rode the now defunct People Mover, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Carribean (more drops in the dark), the train, It's a Small World, Jungle Cruise.

The ride that stands out as the one that started it all, the obsession with theme parks, my love of presentation through immersive experiences, acting, telling stories through theater and music, Patch . . . was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

My mom wanted to go on this one. I immediately said, "NO! No rollercoasters!" She said, "It's not in the dark, you can see where you're going. Try it." I looked at it.

It looked awesomely terrifying. I had to try it. Even then, I knew that I really really wanted to like this machine that intrigued me so much from television specials. I wanted to triumph over it.

It was the greatest ride of my life. Might still be, in that it was the most important ride of my life. I loved every second of it. The hills, the theme, the caves. It was intense, but not too intense. I grasped it.

I was done for. A good chunk of my personality was bred from this ride. Sounds corny, but it's true.

---------------------------------------

2009

Today I visited Disneyland for the third time in my life. I went there by myself, taking it all in at my leisure. I had some Patch business I wanted to talk about with the band and I waited until I was in line for Big Thunder Mountain to do it. A kind of homage to where a lot of the influence started. It was bittersweet.

And Space Mountain, riding it at 25 now instead of 6, might be the better ride overall. It takes your breath away. And the Imagineers have outfitted the trains with music speakers to have a soundtrack along with the ride. They've redone the track to make it less bumpy and have more hills. It's a fantastic ride.

A good day. A good day, indeed.

Tape Deck Mountain -- "In the Dirt"

Exasperations

2009-11-24T23:42:00.001-06:00

A culmination of family history came to a head today over Truth Syrum and Italian Pasta.

My brother, the most poignant antagonist in my life, is also my mom's antagonist. She told me this during dinner, the wine we just had acting as Truth Lube.

And she feels the pain more than I do, now. That's hard to hear, considering that I feel like the most inadequate buffoon known to man after visiting with him. What does she feel like?

Fuck, I thought India was going to change you, Mike.

Wye Oak -- "Take It In"

The Bare

2009-11-23T23:19:00.007-06:00

When I was growing up, I used to make up games involving pathways. People would have to follow my pathways, passing by scenes, needing to use Big Wheel bikes to go down hillsides, finding clues to what they were going to see in each new section. I would take State Park maps and figure out courses for people to follow along nature trails in order to read stories that I would come up with. Each chapter would be found in boxes at different checkpoints.

This was birthed out of a place of creativity and control. Storylines and pathways, new ways of telling the stories, different tools and instruments being utilized to make the stories more interesting. What massive core of my life has all this led to?

One of the byproducts of this game for me was the incessant need to explore EVERY facet of something I was interested in. If I went to a theme park, we had to do EVERY ride. My group would have to follow a "course", visiting smaller rides and building up to the megaloopers. When I visited Disney World in 2003, my mom and I did EVERYTHING. Every bathroom, every shop, every restaurant and every ride was experienced. In every park. Including the Downtown shops, the water parks, the mini golf courses. Let's just say I'm good on Disney World right now. I don't need to visit anytime soon.

If I love a band, I have to get ALL of their work. EP's, singles, all of the LP's (I sometimes leave out Live CD's, though. Live CD's are . . . eh). Legos? I had to get complete sets. I had all of the Aquanauts products back in the day (I still have the main base set up at my mom's house on a shelf in my old room), all of the Castle line as well. All of the Pixar movies. The list goes on.

So, when it came to Vegas today, I wanted to explore everything. If no one else was going to come along, I would've done it by myself.

The problem with doing everything is that things start getting repetitive and boring. Last night, I was floored by Vegas. From "Love" to Caesar's to the casino in Paris. Today, I started to get Vegas. And the glory was coming apart at the seams.

Every hotel has a casino. Every hotel has a theme. You can separate the good hotels from the bad by how well they integrate the theming with their casino area/mall area. For instance: Paris = Great Hotel! because of their integration of French fountains, the Tower, and fake streets going around the slot machines. The Venetian = Great Hotel! The mall area has fucking canals with gondola rides in the middle of the hotel with actual singing gondoliers! Excalibur = Not as Cool because of a loose castle look. Some places have bare walls. They should have brick walls with turrets and towers everywhere. Luxor = Pretty Good for their Egyptian theme. It's a little dark and creepy in there, though. Mandalay Bay = Not as Cool because I can't figure out what the theme is. Cool things inside, but I don't get it. Circus Circus = Not as Cool because it's old and just creepy. The 70's are showing through in the circus theme. Plus, the Adventuredome indoor theme park is vastly lacking. I'm surprised the place is still open.

The best hotels:
The Bellagio = The theme is confusing, but it's decadently Italian oriented. This place is Ritzy. Everyone is dressed to the nines here (I was in a thermal shirt and red jeans, basically my work clothes. Underdressed.). It just looks amazing all around.
New York, New York = Theming is spot on. New York skylines and streets, bars made to look like they're built onto a street corner. A fucking rollercoaster going through the skyline!!!
Paris = Best theme job overall. I've already spluged on this one.
The Venetian = Another great theme job. Plus, seriously, CANALS?!?!?!
Winn = Ritzy. Cool casino, too.

Runner Ups:
Caesar's Palace = Good theming, but there could be more. The Colosseum is a nice touch, though.
The Palazzo = A cross between The Bellagio and The Venetian. Just decadent and vaguely Italian.
Treasure Island = Adventure themed with rocks.
The Mirage = Adventure themed with rocks. A twofer. Get more original.
Luxor = Cool Egyptian theme, but the place is depressing because of all the grey interior. The outside's awesome, though.
Circus Circus = Just for the creep factor alone it's kind of interesting.

Not worth seeing:
Bally's, Flamingo, Hurrah's, Stratosphere (unless you want to pay $40 to go to the top of the tower to ride some rides), Excalibur, Mandalay Bay (unless you want to go for the bars and restaurants).

I didn't hit MGM Grand or the Riviera, though. I heard they weren't that special. I would've liked to have gone through Sahara and Rio, though.

After exploring all of these places, I was done with Vegas. Next time I'd like to pick a few places and just drink, gamble, and party. With people my own age, too. Get dressed up. See Cirque du Soleil one night (they have six shows in Vegas!). Maybe even venture off into the old Vegas, where the Golden Nugget resides.

Have more of a Sin-filled experience . . .

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons -- "Walk Like a Man"

P.S.: The Jersey Boys is a pretty awesome show, as well. A bit expensive, though.

The Strip

2009-11-22T23:07:00.004-06:00

Having never been in a desert, and/or Nevada, and/or Las Vegas, I felt that I was about to embark on an experience left to the whims of unknowing absorption. That's just what I went through.

The Mojave Desert looks otherworldly. I can totally grasp why Hollywood would choose this region to film Mars landscape footage, or any other desert like planet in a sci-fi epic. Death Valley was the locale for Tatooine in Star Wars, I know. Death Valley is just a ways north of where we were driving. I kept getting lost in thought amongst the mountains and rocky cliffs. It was great. There was even a defunct waterpark along I-15, totally overrun by weedlike desert vegetation. I want to explore there one day.

Getting into Vegas, you're not thrust headfirst into a clusterfuck of stimulation. Small scale towers show up here and there, and then you see the Strip. A small oasis of towers along the freeway. It looked like we were pulling up to a theme park. The towers aren't massively huge. They're okay from the angle of the freeway, their true scale. But from their front angle, along Las Vegas Blvd., they appear as towering monoliths, Holy Towers for the American Playground, beckoning the fool to come closer, to partake in their hidden innards.

We immediately sought The Mirage in order to procure our tickets for "Love", the Cirque du Soleil show honoring The Beatles. It was a prologue to madness. To the overstimulation I hinted at above. The Mirage totes a small but satisfying biodome as their main rotunda, complete with lush tropical gardens and cascading waterfalls. I've seen that before. The casino within, Mystic Lake provided me with enough know-how about the casino racket to not be too overtaken with "WOW!"-ness. It wasn't until we walked up to the "Love" box office that I started getting wind to how crazy Vegas would be. It is a rainbow of psychedelia, the floor changes color, the ceiling made of silver reflective balls, making it so that massive amounts of Sgt. Pepper colors are falling all around you. We got our tickets and made our way to the Paris.

Here's where my heart kicked up a notch. The Paris sports a half-scale Eiffel Tower in the front of the building, with the back half's bottom nestled within the main center room. You go inside the building, and all around the Eiffel Tower are fountains, slot machines, fake skyscapes painted on the ceiling, bars and lounges that look like French cafes. A Cabaret theatre is placed in one corner, a nice restaurant (Mon Ami Gabi) in another, and a crystal chandeliered check-in hall juts off from one end as well. We dropped our bags in this check-in hall, and my aunt said, "You're a Vegas virgin, aren't you?" I nodded, eyes wide, looking into the Paris casino. She said, "Go buy your first drink at the lounge there and walk around, I'll watch the bags."

I bought a $9 Gin and Tonic (nine goddamn dollars?!) and casually strolled along fake French alleyways, art galleries celebrating French book cover art, took in a game of Craps (I always think of someone shouting "Silva Tuna tonight!!!!" as they shake their dice, ready to let 'em roll), marveled at the Tower crashing through the ceiling like a lone Godzilla leg that has carelessly strolled through in its rampage, peroused the night club (Risque), the chocolate shoppes, the winery . . . the place was overwhelming.

We got to our rooms and I couldn't wait to get out onto the Strip. I looked out of my window and could see Caesar's Palace across the street, Trump Tower down the way, Treasure Island and The Mirage. We quickly got dressed up, had a few Cosmo's made by my uncle, and walked over to Caesar's for dinner. Again, fake skies, massive fountains, waterfalls . . . this was the first time that I noticed that every hotel holds a small mall within its bowels. Complete with theming.

We ate an expensive crab dinner (talking family politics, I don't grow tired of this). I cut my finger peeling a crab claw pincher. A crab cut. I bled all over my dinner before I realized what was happening. I then had the best Filet Mignon I've ever tasted (sorry fellow veggie friends).

We headed on over to The Mirage for "Love".

We first stepped into the Revolution Lounge, a fully immersive bar blasting Beatles music, complete with interactive coffee tables, walls that would spontaneously show movies of the Beatles, it was a great place to lube the senses with alcohol before stepping into the "Love Theater" . . .

I was left teary-eyed five times over. At Miniapple, I had found the CD version of "Love" hidden within a case designated for classical music. We've been waking the kids up to it for the last month cranked high enough that I'm sure other rooms can hear it at distracting levels. The kids love "Hey Jude", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Octopus's Garden" and "Sgt. Pepper (Reprise)" the most, it seems. I kept thinking of them and my coworkers, wishing they could see how beautiful the production was. Every song was different. My personal favorites were probably "Within You Without You" (a table of dreaming clowns spreads its dining cloth so that it covers the entire audience with a white tarp, making it appear as if the table is floating through a massive dream landscape of clouds and thought), "Octopus's Garden" (huge jellyfish prosthetic puppets worn by the performers rocket through the air from all around at dangerous speeds), "Come Together" (a great light show spotlight fiasco focusing on one performer at a time, going perfectly with the music, simple as can be idea-wise, but the moves the performers do are downright almost humanly impossible!). All the songs were great.

Here's a documentary I found from the BBC detailing "Love" and the conception of it with the surviving members of The Beatles to the current production. Click on the video to go to YouTube and you can watch the successive parts of the show.

Afterward, we were beat. I was drunk and tired. It was a great first impression of Sin City, which so far, didn't seem to have Sin in massive quantities like I had thought. It was very family friendly so far.

The Beatles -- "Helter Skelter"

Forgotten Taboos

2009-11-21T23:16:00.001-06:00

A couple posts ago, I mentioned how it seems that former lovers tend to not dwell on the fact that yes, we were, in fact, lovers some time ago. It comes as a shock to them if I ever mention anything pertaining to that fact.

I flew into Los Angeles today, and pretty much from the get-go, I met up with one of my exes. She happens to hold the record for longest relationship yet in my life. She moved to California two years ago and doesn't regret one bit the decisions she has made. Or that we made in terms of our relationship some four or five years ago. Neither do I, really. It's good that we chose to do what we did.

But it still comes as a shock to me when people know nothing about me when it comes to her. I met some of her friends on our way to a loft party in downtown LA. We all hit it off splendidly. At the party, one of these people asked, "So, how did you two meet?" I said, "Oh, we dated for two and a half years." They stopped dancing, their eyes got wide, and they said, "REALLY?! I didn't know that. Two years?!" They left to go talk to her.

I laughed and started talking with a man who happens to be a conceptual artist for the Guitar Hero franchise. Lots of interesting things going on in that realm . . . top secret plans . . .

Left to my own devices while crashing on a couch, I thought about the difference between me and the former lovers I've had. Why do all of my friends know about my past? Why do their friends know nothing about their past? Does it hurt to think about what we were? I doubt it.

Is it a sign that I should keep my trap shut regarding my past and just traipse along in the present, looking forward to the future? I doubt that, too.

I guess it doesn't matter. Maybe I should just take pleasure in seeing the reactions people have when they ask "How did you two meet?"

I'll settle with that.

Thao Nguyen -- "Beat (Health, Life, Fire)"

Hurry Up and Wait

2009-11-20T12:09:00.000-06:00

My anxious cylinders have been on full blast these last couple of days. Negotiations, business, money, yaddah yaddah yaddah . . .

Scotty said "YES!"

What about the other guys? What do they say?

Too bad I have to be away from a computer for the next couple of days. I'll be in mid-breath for a week, waiting to know their answers . . .

Franz Ferdinand -- "I'm Your Villain"

Incest Not of Appalachia

2009-11-19T21:37:00.002-06:00

Like the winds of time, their eyes doth turn
In spite of themselves, they turn to others
What they do not have, what makes them shiver
You have what they want. Not what they need.

----------------------------------------

I'm cursed with a "want" to please everybody around me. In recent years, this has waned a bit, having procured the experience to know the age old wisecrack "You can't please everybody" to be a true statement. You please some people, you disappoint others in the process. If you truly want to please everybody, don't do anything. Just sit in solitude playing cards in front of a fire in the woods.

Yet, this curse persists. I hate confrontation, yet I seem to find it regularly. If you take a lover, you're most likely breaking the heart of the recently separated past partner. If you happen to find yourself as a sloppy seconds to that same partner on more than one occasion . . . well, that's another story entirely.

Welcome to the Incestuous Circle.

I've found myself within these corridors of chaos more often than I care to count. If you have a co-ed group of friends, you're most likely going to sleep with one of them in your lifetime. If you're like me . . . I've found that most of the women I've had relations with have tended to bond together after the fact. Women from different circles, mind you. It's like a mass convention of post-Peter Moose Lodge VFW Veterans talking about life after the War, yet never talking of the War. You are non-existent in their conversation, most likely in their mind's eye, at that. If you bring it up to them they either seem startled and confused ("When did we . . . Oh! Right!") or downright insulted.

I'm not alluding to any notion that I've slept with countless amounts of women. I've dabbled, yes, but, it's a normal number. I just happen to have held minor courtship with most of my friends. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Picture the clown shrugging his shoulders . . .

When I reach a point where I'm out of the chaos and can relish in the friendship I hold with each of these lovers, it brings a smile to my face. It's funny and strange. "Yikes!" comes to mind. There's always a reasonable explanation.

In this case, there's one girl who was the cause . . .

She is a matchmaker. Having people meet others in full blown, unmasked dating hopefulness. This can be dangerous, I've found. A couple of my friends are matchmakers. It gets dangerous when these people are also introduced to a mass amount of friends, the matchmaker's group. You happen to be part of this group. You meet these matched up pairs knowing full well they are untouchable. But they carry the aura of one who is fully submerged in the dating world, so that if they happen to have their hold relinquished by the one they've been paired up with . . . well, it was never meant to be. Maybe it's better this way.

I've now done this twice to a friend. I know him to be the "former lover". I haven't hung out with him outside of large party events. So, I imagine it puts him in a tough spot. "I'm a thief," says my insecurity. But really? Everything's legal, right? I haven't traipsed on a clause detailing punishment for breaching a post-breakup agreement twice in a row, have I?

Alright, to make this incestuousness come full circle this man would have to date or become involved somehow with one of my past lovers. Within this group, though, they're all taken, currently. Taken with partners better than I, to tell the truth.

So, I can't help him in that regard. I guess a few beers out of my pocket will have to do . . .

Girls -- "Hellhole Ratrace"

Overlooked but Not Forgotten

2009-11-18T21:32:00.002-06:00

In the hustle and bustle of getting Patch Live underway, I forget to mention news about "Schematics".

One mix session left . . . Tracks 1-3 are finished and sounding HUGE. Schuyler is saying that Tracks 4-5 are basically pretty good as is (these were the last two songs I worked on, and my own mixing skills were shaping up. That, or it's because the sound palette for both of these tracks is a little simpler.).

After my vacation, "Schematics" should be done in mixing.

Beck -- "Inferno"

The Final Piece

2009-11-17T23:06:00.003-06:00

Scotty had his first sitdown with the band. It was amazing.

My lacking knowledge in music theory was supplemented and helped by Scotty's vast, almost Wikipedia-like knowledge on rhythm. If someone was having a problem with "Typosgraphy"'s bass or guitar riffs, Scotty would step in and ask, "Can I help?" He would then walk them through my own song, naming things that I never even knew were in my own piece of art. "Yeah, that's in 9/8, you just have to break it down like this and follow Pete's vocals. That's what I do. I'll show you."

He also asked questions regarding all of the little things one of us did wrong in the song. Little intricate parts that I picked up on but didn't necessarily address since I'd rather school the players one on one later, and since it was mainly a focus on the drums at the practice tonight. Scotty made it okay to fix one person's goof with everybody else present.

So . . . both Tim and Scotty are hard contenders . . . but in a conversation with Tim tonight on Facebook, Tim expressed some honest feelings regarding Patch. Long story short, Tim's out by his own accord.

Let's hope Scotty bites . . .

Orba Squara -- "The Trouble with Flying"

One on One 2

2009-11-16T23:24:00.001-06:00

Patch is currently in the midst of the second drummer audition. Tonight I held a one on one session with Scotty Horey, a Union scale percussionist I met while mixing with Schuyler a few weeks back. The only instrument I'm wary about with Patch is the drums, so I called in two different players to see who'd be the right fit. Both Tim and Scotty have been showing different positives. It's going to be a tough call.

Here's some footage of Scotty's one on one audition. Sadly, I don't have any of Tim's band audition last Saturday.

1) Scotty playing along to my Schematics version of "Trachomanic" on his laptop. He actually transcribed the two songs I asked him to prepare ("Typosgraphy" and "Trachomanic") in sheet music and then made up his own riffs for certain sections.

2) Scotty playing along with me on guitar for "Typosgraphy". This was the portion of the session where I gave him direction and scatted out new ideas for him to embark on within his interpretation of my music (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT aspect to gauge whether or not we'll have a good relationship within the band).

Tomorrow night we have the band audition with Scotty, working on the same material we worked on with Tim's band audition. After this, Patch will take a break for a week and half while I go on vacation to Los Angeles and Las Vegas, during which time we'll be talking as a band to decide who to keep as the permanent guy and who to keep for the experimental shows or future versions of the live band.

We hit the ground running December 1st . . .

Mastodon -- "Crack the Skye"

Another Check

2009-11-15T22:07:00.003-06:00

Yesterday's post was entitled "A Day of Firsts" . . . here's the second "first":

I got into my first car accident last night.

It wasn't serious. And I wasn't shaken by it. But I was in one nontheless.

I find it ironic that whenever there seems to be a first day of live activity for Patch, I find myself in strange scenarios involving my car. Back in May, the day Greg and I started putting samples and electronics down in preparation for the whole band experience, I got pulled over in my own driveway for running a red light. The cop had witnessed someone getting their face blown off just prior and was in a complete tiff, disregarding any of my claims of dumbfoundness pertaining to the backslap of the red light. I got off, having persisted in my asking of "which light did I run through?" We made peace.

Yesterday, after a post-practice Spring Street Tavern celebration, I was giving Adri a ride home to Uptown. On 8th St. and University Ave. in Northeast, the light had just turned green for me. I started to slowly go through, a good five seconds after the light had turned. Some weirdo who was stopped perpendicular on the other street, who had a red light, started going slowly through the intersection. I had gone too far out into the middle of the street, so that even if I had stopped, he would have barreled into me. So I sped up to get out of this asshole's way, since he wasn't stopping. A good ten cars were idling on his street, and it seemed like such a buffoon move. I remember yelling and picturing a dunce cap covering the roof of the car.

He clipped my rear right door.

I pulled over immediately, and he turned and parked behind me. I got out, so did the person in the other car. The man who got out was an older man, perhaps in his late 30's/early 40's. He had a five o' clock shadow, and I couldn't help but think "failure". He said, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was distracted, I'm sorry."

The damage done to my car was a couple of ripples in the siding of the door, nothing serious. I have scrapes on the rear bumper that are worse. I sighed and looked at his car. His front bumper was scraped up and his license plate was hanging askew. He got it worse than I did. I nodded to myself and said internally, "He got it worse. Everything's fine." I shook his hand, no harm done, really. Adri and I got back in the car and drove off.

We talked about it for another two minutes, then went back to talking Patch. Another thing to add to the list of adventures experienced.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros -- "Home"

A Day of Firsts

2009-11-14T21:11:00.000-06:00

Today marked the first day that Patch had a live rehearsal. Greg was away for a wedding, so I played the parts of both me and him.

The item for the day: get a feel for how each person interacts with eachother and my direction. See what they each come up with on their own. See how the different musical styles and schemas mesh with one another. How to do this? Practice a song entirely of the Patch sound: Typosgraphy. Strip away any sort of basic 4/4 beat and see how different time changes go over with each individual.

It went over very well. I'm shaking with excitement. Seriously, we're making a huge sound. A professional sound. A scary sound.

Welcome to the family: Dustin, Adri, and Tim.
King Crimson -- "Moonchild"

Trading Spaces

2009-11-13T20:57:00.001-06:00

My workstation:
The Clash -- "The Guns of Brixton"

The Cost of Noise

2009-11-12T22:03:00.002-06:00

Patch's rehearsal space is situated in the back of the Monroe house. It is nestled in a garage turned storage area, not connected to the main house. Electricity flows in and out, but that's it. There is no heat. It is a space.

The first intent of Louie buying a house some two and a half years ago was to have a creative space where a band lived, breathed, and created together. Even before we moved in, item #1 was to have the back space all set up and ready to go as a practice area. It was big enough to house five guys and all their equipment. That summer (2007) and the proceeding fall we were in that room constantly, practicing for a handful of shows. November 2007 we started losing gusto and oomph. Dave left the band, the rest of us were kind of sick of how things were going. We had some drum auditions, but they proved to be lacking. WE proved to be lacking.

The last official Citizens Banned show was December 12, 2007. I was both lead singer and drummer. It was a fizzling moment, an epilogue to the end of CB. It was also when the practice space suffered in activity and upkeep.

It became a place of random storage. If someone didn't want to have something in the house it was placed in the back room. Creativity does not flow amongst clutter. No one went back into the room, save for Adri, who sometimes held impromptu practice sessions with Nikki Schultz's band. It became a pit of limbo, sometimes inviting us in for music jamming (and there were some projects happening back there, including a Smiths cover band, a birthday party show with everyone from Citizens Banned). Even recently, with The Lizard People pet project, it was still a mess. At this point, people were starting to move out of the house, using it as a prep point to keep piles and piles of shit until the big move. Lizard People held its practice sessions in the living room of the Monroe House, which for both the house and the neighbors was not ideal. The entire time we lamented about not being able to use the back room.

I got really fed up about it. I vowed that once everyone moved out and the new roommates moved in, I would turn that space into an even better practice area than what it was in the Citizens Banned days. It would be fully decorated, have a great PA system (CB's PA system was crap, nobody could hear vocals except for me since I put my voice into headphones in addition to the muffled speakers), refrigerator, television, a writing space, a nice storage area for cables and spare instruments, etc. This week we finally got the space cleaned out of all "storage" related material, and I set about making a fully workable music space.

Everything has been great so far . . . except the neighbors . . .

The price of having a free space to perform music, a preferred place untouched by anyone else where you can come and go as you please, is to have to compromise with neighbors on noise issues. Patch is loud. Louder than Citizens Banned. Everytime I've plugged an amp in or tuned the drums, the front door was pounded on by my neighbor yelling to "shut the music off".

One piece of back space construction: make peace with the neighbors.

So, after I got off work tonight, I ventured next door to my neighbor's front yard. The gate is hard to open, I had a little trouble getting the latch undone. On the other side, I shut the rusty gate, closed 'er down tight. I went up to the front door and knocked. Immediately a large dog named Bear started howling and barking furiously. Wasn't out of the ordinary, since he basically barks all of the goddamn time outside. He's part of the normal ambience.

Nobody came to the door. I knocked again. Strangely, the dog didn't bark on the other side. I was about to leave the yard, hoping the neighbor wouldn't call the cops on me the next night when drums would be wailed on at 8:00pm, when Bear came running along the side of the house into the front yard barking angrily. I froze. I saw it and immediately panicked. Do I bolt over the fence, risking my testicles in certain smashing, run for the hard to open gate, or stay where I am? I stayed put.

Bear started to bark in the other direction, looking for passing walkers. He turned, unsatisfied, and saw me standing on the front doorstep. I gulped. He ran at me, barking furiously. My voice started up in a rising scream. I turned into the doorway, and he grabbed my right leg in his jaws on the back of my upper thigh. He then proceeded to pull back. He took with him a chunk of my pants (ruined) and some skin. I didn't know I was bleeding quite yet. It just hurt like a motherfucker.

I turned to the neighbors shouting "BEAR!! STOP!!!" Bear ran away quickly, I turned, hiding my exposed underwear and most likely my nearly eaten man fruits.

Being the forgiving type, I left them without any ounce of the word "lawsuit". We also settled on noise being done at 9:00pm every night. I almost opted to say "Well, 10:00pm now that your dog destroyed my pants and gave me possible infection of God knows what!" But beggars can't be choosers.

I got the karma I deserved for making noise unannounced to the world around me, the way I see it. We're all square. But that dog, if it ever comes near me again, will have the police on him. Two little kids reside in the house neighboring on the other side of my own. I'm not fucking around next time, for their sake.

Mr. Bungle -- "Sweet Charity"

One on One 1

2009-11-11T22:30:00.001-06:00

Had my first one on one with Dustin: lead guitarist.

We figured out his main distorted tone, and it was the beginning of a series of practice sessions geared to feel out how much direction I would be giving each member. How much they'll bring to the table. Up until next week, Patch Live 1.0 will be in this limbo stage of auditions and pre-pool showering.

It felt good to be in that space again. It's not completely set up yet, but at least it's already getting some action within its four dusty walls.

Pantera -- "13 Steps to Nowhere"

Art and Awful

2009-11-10T23:03:00.001-06:00

There's a fine line between art and awful. I saw a band tonight named Blacki (part of an every-other-weekly gig at The Art of This gallery showcasing three bands/soloists. Schuyler's Shield Your Eyes was the second band on the bill tonight. The first soloist was Pelzwik. They were both amazing.). While the other bands sported interesting ways to make ambient/noise/electronic/avant garde music, Blacki just made me think of those viral videos circulating the internet called "Shredding", which have terribly performed overdubs of famous band performances. Eric Clapton doesn't sound like Eric Clapton should, yet the overdubs logically follow what is happening on screen. A ton of bands have been "shredded".

My personal favorite is a Creed "shred":

Now, check out Blacki.

Alas, I was put in a funk, much like the post-Walker Art Center funk. I was really trying to see the artistic merits of Blacki, but I couldn't stop thinking that if I closed my eyes after someone said "Listen to these guys and tell me who you think is playing it" I'd say a bunch of four year olds picked up some instruments in a basement and just played random notes.

I'm sorry Blacki, I tried.

Pelzwik -- "Track 2 (Of Untitled Demo Disc I Received at Show)"

Man at Work

2009-11-09T09:02:00.003-06:00

Construction has begun on Patch's rehearsal space . . . results pending.

Remy Shand -- "The Second One"

Leaves of Absence

2009-11-08T23:52:00.002-06:00

Stupid leaves. It was leaf cleaning day. It pushed back making the rehearsal space. Fuckin' leaves . . .

The Vines -- "Autumn Shade II"

The Eye of Hurricane Asshole

2009-11-07T22:59:00.002-06:00

The Mall of America carries a strange stigma for me. Growing up, obsessed with all things amusement parks, rides, and themes, Camp Snoopy was always on my travel wishlist. The first time I visited the Mall was in seventh grade, if I'm not mistaken. I loved it. The log ride was my favorite, being that it was heavily themed, it was creative, it utilized the space it resided in beautifully. I went back the next year after that, again I loved it.

Flash forward to college, particularly the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Freshman year, right when you started school, if you were an out of towner, the MOA was one of the only things to do outside of campus, other than going to the Metrodome to check out Gophers football and downtown to Block E to catch a movie or play video games at Gameworks before 9:00pm (when they turn into a full out bar). So, the MOA was visted often, a companion to the trepidation I held for being out of the nest and away from my parents for the first time. I go back to that place in my head still whenever I visit the MOA. Especially when I frequent the amusement park in the middle.

As time wore on, the Mall was naturally seen as a sore in the Twin Cities. The natives were done with it, we grew older and wiser . . . we worked there. I never did, but a lot of my friends have or do. Whenever I venture to suggest a MOA trip to the clan, I tend to get a lot of groans as an answer. The Mall does magnify the generation below my own in an unfavorable light. I was hissed at on two separate occasions recently by passersby teenagers. The women there are of the fake Stepford Wife hopefuls, the men the American Eagle/Abercrombie/Hollister consumers. Within Nickelodeon Universe (what the former Camp Snoopy is called now) these dour personalities dissipate, leaving happy families, couples, and goofy braces laden teenagers in their stead. I like the amusement park. It tends to separate the pretentious from the happy souls. And I find it to still be a good date spot.

You can tell a lot about a person, especially if they have or currently work at the Mall, when they are within the confines of the nucleus of the largest shopping center in America. It's like a psychological screening. People who shun the park will most likely never be called upon for many out of the house romps by my person. The pro-park peeps: I've become best friends with people at this place. It makes me realize the intricacies within the personalities of the company I keep. I'm asking them to journey into a courtyard of a compound surrounded by asshole, shallow minded consumers. The very nature of our impending demise as a society is unmasked without remorse at the MOA, and I'm asking artists/intellectuals/level headed people to go there with me to have fun in an unironic way. It makes me realize there are people willing to goof off with me, wearing immaturity on their sleeve. My kind of people.

To my companion in tonight's Universe jaunt: it was beautiful. All pure, all good. Another found soul mate revealed as we were laughing at the bottom of the Log Chute's last drop.

The Kills -- "Black Balloon"

Captain Trips

2009-11-06T23:31:00.002-06:00

We are in the midst of a plague. Them damn pig lickin' toddlers done got us in a fix, and now we're payin' for the sins we hath committed. The gluttonous wine and dine are now inflicted with the flu of the Swine.

Here's something interesting: I get the notion that, while we are taking pains to prevent H1N1 from spreading within our walls, it doesn't matter much to anybody. A couple of kids have been "treated" for H1N1, there hasn't been any word on whether or not they actually had it. There's also the notion that H1N1 is the only flu strain going around right now, so it's always a good idea to be treated for Swine Flu no matter what.

We sent more kids home this week than any other time I can remember. I think we were half-capacity today. Still, there's no panic, there's no "Go get yer flu shot!" It's "Feel better, give me a hug, I care that you're sick." Guess what? I've probably got Swine Flu all over my clothes right now. Am I worried? Am I ignorant? Am I careless? Why do I feel so . . . calm about this.

It may have to do with hand sanitizers.

I'm not the biggest clean freak in the world. My room is testament to that. I always wash my hands after I use the bathroom but I don't wash my hands enough in general, pertaining to when I've worked outside, or touched lots of dust, or finished cleaning with poisonous cleaning products, taken out the garbage, etc. Germs are OKAY. Here's a little hint: if you clean them all off how is your body going to know how to fight them off? Just like flu shots, giving your body a little bit of germs to munch on will teach it to eradicate the threat of them. We freak out about getting shots yet we clean ourselves silly with HAND SANITIZERS. Alcoholic germicides that wipe out everything, from the serious badass intestine munchers to the not-so-cool bad breath hounds.

While at college, we were taught in the Child Psych department to keep hand sanitizing products AWAY from kids. 1) Alcohol is in it. Kind of poisonous to little people. But not that big of a deal, really. 2) Allergies will develop because the body won't know how to fight off minor germ threats. It will just go into a default panic, creating hives, shortness of breath, etc. 3) YOU'LL GET SICK MORE BECAUSE YOUR BODY WON'T KNOW THE GERMS IT NEEDS TO FIGHT OFF THROUGHOUT YOUR LIFETIME!!!!

Parents have requested that we keep hand sanitizing solution in our school. They actually demanded "Why don't you have hand sanitizer in your classrooms?!" You fucking imbeciles, HAND SANITIZER IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE TO WHAT YOUR CHILD NEEDS!!! There are notices posted in the school saying "We don't use hand sanitizer because it has alcohol in it. It is your choice (the parent) to use this product." No mention of my second and third reasons for not using hand sanitizers. There is one bottle of hand sanitizer in the school. I see a lot of people using it, as it is in the entryway.

This is why we're all going to die in a massive plague apocalypse. Because we don't listen, we think it makes sense to use the germicide all purpose killer.

Again: don't use hand sanitizers, people. This isn't a conspiracy. Your body needs germs to fight constantly, creating a large database of things it doesn't like.

Use regular hand soap. NOT anti-bacterial soap. It's the same concept as hand sanitizers.

The more your body is introduced to small amounts of germs, the more it will be immune to all sorts of foreign contaminants. Seriously, you won't get sick. The more you kill those germs before they are introduced to customs, the more your customs bodyguards will fail in noticing an imminent threat to their vessel.

Morphine -- "Top Floor, Bottom Buzzer"

Dan Grahammit!!!

2009-11-05T22:53:00.001-06:00

I visited the Walker Art Center for the first time since I've lived in Minneapolis. I was looking forward to it. I love Art, the ideals of it. I tend to get frustrated with it, though, but this stems from me "loving" it. I'm not a patron who hums and awes at a blank canvas with a dot in one corner symbolizing both the style of 60's minimalism and the notion of hope within the culture. I see an artist who felt like that might have been the best message regarding the place and time, but it fails to produce an empathetic taint in my breath. It more leads to a sarcastic comment by me to my cohorts.

My favorite art is art with layers. It can be minimalistic in nature, but it has to be bold. It cannot be four bungee cords tied together in a corner of a room made to look like a blank canvas. Those bungee cords have to be smeared with paint in places, tied to nails, have tiny feathers sticking out, something more than just bungee cords (I mention bungee cords simply because there is this piece of art in the Walker and it struck a . . . discord? . . . with me and my person.). It needs to stick out, have at least three elements.

One of the galleries, Haegue Yang: Integrity of the Insider, brought you inside of the work. You walk into a large room bathed in red light. Venetian blinds hang every which way, reflecting the light in weird mishmash patterns. Looking around the room, my cohort and I found a drumset in a back corner. It was begging to be played, and my companion went to go ask one of the grey suits if it was kosher for the public to play the drumset. Apparently, that was the intent all along. The set is rigged to the lighting system of the room, so that when you bang on the drums, the lights turn, making the shadows around the room dance and intermingle. I played for a good five minutes. A small crowd had gathered to watch after a bit (you can hear those drums on four different floors in the Gallery Tower, it's what brought us into the gallery initially). But I didn't quite grasp the concept of the piece. I had fun with it, but the message was lost. We left with smiles on our faces, mainly concocted from the drum set and the crowd, but also with a sense of sarcastic irony floating beneath our shared gritting teeth.

We failed the artist. I feel most do. Or did the artist fail us? Or is there no failure to be had? That's what pisses me off about art. Most musicians, poets, painters, writers, and the rest of the gamut will say "It's whatever you want it to be" when asked what the piece is about, what it meant, how it should be received, experienced, if it can fail, etc. There is too much liminal space and grey area. It seems lazy to me.

I make up my own meaning to art. But I also like knowing what the artist's intent was initially.

Dan Graham was the main highlight of the Center when we went. He takes up three floors currently in the Gallery Tower. While there were some interesting one way mirror displays (which I found entertaining -- there is a heart shaped mirror system in the middle of a large center room. If you go inside the heart, people on the other side will come up and look at themselves as if it's a funhouse mirror, all the while looking directly at you. Strangers make funny faces at you and they don't realize it.) the whole exhibit seemed stale, old, and irrelevant to me. I got a lot of the art, but I didn't care. And that pissed me off. My partner and I both coined an inside joke for the evening stemming from the shared frustration we both had for the exhibit and the rest of the Center: "DAN GRAHAMMIT!! What does it mean?! Why should I care?!"

Dan Grahammit, indeed. Art: I love you and hate you. If you were personified in a Disney film you would be portrayed as a pretentious, fashionably unfashionable asshole who simply glares at people when asked questions. Yawning, you'd say "I've grown tired of myself," and then not move or do anything. You'd just stand there with half-closed eyes.

My purpose in life is to punch Art in the teeth. "If you're so tired of yourself, then fucking DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!!"

Arlo Guthrie -- "The Motorcycle Song"

Tangible Victims

2009-11-04T23:50:00.000-06:00

The second song:

OUT OF HIDING

Lovage -- "Stroker Ace"

Asexually Autonomous

2009-11-03T20:59:00.000-06:00

After a certain amount of time of not being involved with any sort of person, I tend to forget that there's a part of me looking for love, lust, a romantic companion. There are definite people sparking my eye, making me stop and say "Ooh! Maybe . . ." but I tend to not embark on asking to make something of those sparks.

The reason for this is due to music. When I become so busy, I forget I have a life. Currently, I'm trying to work out a persuasion speech to a drummer who's asking for money upfront (hourly rates, rehearsal fees, Jesus Christ!), making calls back and forth for art design and website development, writing new material for the live band, finishing up mixing and arguing over mixing styles (two producers coming together to create from their own respective styles will lend itself to some battles), getting the rehearsal space readied, etc. It's getting to be insane!

That being said, I feel this past weekend has changed me. Most people mention that an experience like the one I went through will tend to do that. Cutting to the chase, I tried LSD for the first time. I don't plan on doing it too, too much in my lifetime (one reason being that I'm still a little slow and loopy even after four days). Since I got back from Madison, I felt as if I transcended into a new realm, a new place. I've been doing Patch work nonstop, with no desire to quit. I love critical thinking, creative projects, calling up friends/business partners and negotiating guidelines and the future, etc. I felt like the time has come, finally.

There's a person at my work who, in my mind, is the definition of "put together". This isn't in any way a derogatory term based off of the way she looks ("Would ya look at dat broad, dat ass is PUT TOGETHA!"). She doesn't seem to have any faults. They're there, underneath the surface. And when she shows emotion, it's small and not too disclosing. So, you assume she's human, but when she does her daily routine at work, she's a universal soldier. She can do anything. She has her emotions in check, her looks, her style, her clothes, her job, her life, everything is okay.

These people are the Asexually Autonomous.

I've only met a few. I find this interesting. People who I assume are with somebody tend to be looking for help in my eyes. There's something inside saying "I'm not put together, help me!" I also think this pertains to my "White Knight" complex. My brain becomes more enamored with people who seem to need guidance than with people who don't. It gets me in trouble, though.

All my life I've been with people looking for help. These people aren't in dire need, they're not depressed, they're not weak in any way. They were simply "looking for more".

I'd like to try my hand with someone who's Asexually Autonomous. Will the relationship be dry and boring? Because they're not looking, will a spark even fly? Or do they have it in with trust, because they've figured themselves out so well, you never have to worry about slip ups.

I've figured myself out, I think. I've got my problems here and there, but I feel like I'm more in the Asexually Autonomous camp more than I realize, due to all the work I do, the double life I lead. That's probably why I don't find more relationships. Maybe not. Who knows? Maybe I'm just an asshole.

But it's something to think about.

Fever Ray -- "I'm Not Done"

Another Step Forward

2009-11-02T23:49:00.004-06:00

There are now five in the band. One in question. Four definites.

Assemblage of the rehearsal space starts this weekend.

Practicing: hopefully next week.

Mad Season -- "Wake Up"

Egoless Clarity

2009-11-01T22:15:00.008-06:00

To further elaborate on last night's events . . .

Standing on a lake in Madison, WI, the water became a moving mirror. Triangle shaped glass patterns fought to climb to the surface, creating a silent, chaotic war for miles around. The sun's color was just leaving the sky in the distance. On the other side of the lake, the lights twinkled and warped, the stars above blinking on and off. I found a light straight ahead of me . . . and meditated . . .

Immediately, all around the horizon, fireworks exploded, and the landscape lit up as if a vast napalm blast shook the Earth. The explosion flew across the lake. Just as it was about to hit me, the light sucked the youth of me. It took my fears, memories, happy times, sad times, and threw it into the one light across from me. A rumbling sound emitted all around, and finally, everything was inside the light pinpoint in front of me. One dot encapsulating my youth, ready to tap into now and then. I was now moving on. I was now in the next realm. 25 and ready to embark on the new me.

I turned around and saw my three other compatriots, who, no doubt, were experiencing their own ego removal. We then sighed, walked toward the Capitol and State Street, laughing all the while until we came back to the party we had ventured some 250 miles for.

It was a terrifying night, but a satisfying one. A happy one. What Halloween should be about.

Perfect.

Muddy Waters -- "Mannish Boy"

Mainstream Mania

2009-10-31T20:46:00.001-05:00

The big day. A hodge-podge of the unknown, the uncomfortable, and the unforgettable. Together they make post-adventure excitement. And that is the essence for this Halloween . . . where I visited the most intense haunted house I've ever experienced . . . my own head.

10. House of 1,000 Corpses -- Firefly Slashing (you'll go to YouTube)

11. Nine Inch Nails -- The Broken Movie (Part 1)

12. The Broken Movie (Part 2)

13. The Broken Movie (Part 3)

14. Marilyn Manson's "Fuck Frankie"

15. Pencil Face

16. The Exorcist -- Crucifix Fun

Marilyn Manson -- "I Put a Spell on You"

The Core of Me

2009-10-30T23:01:00.002-05:00

Unfortunately, I came down with a sickness tonight, prompting me to only buy a costume at Twin Cities Costume and Magic in St. Paul, then to rest up with the roomies, lighting the Jack o' Lanterns they carved (mine was left at yesterday's party), and watching my favorite scary movie. The perfect Halloween movie: "Creepshow". This movie, while cheesy and stupid, could be the main pop culture influence I've had throughout my life. I was six years old, sitting in the living room with my mom Halloween week, wanting to watch scary programs on television. She was looking through the TV listings and said, "Oooh, Peter, would you want to watch 'Creepshow'? It's by a guy named Stephen King." "Who's he?" I remember asking. "The master of horror," she responded.

Bam! Of course I was going to watch that! I was into monsters and debauchery when I was a baby (there's a home video of me sitting on a witch's lap at a pumpkin farm when I was one, laughing at her the entire time.). I loved it. It set me on a course to seek out more Stephen King, more George Romero, more zombies, monsters, etc. I have my mom to thank for my lust of all things "Fucked Up".

Here are two videos showing the death scenes of my two favorite stories in "Creepshow" (it's an anthology of five stories based off of an EC type comic book, like "Tales From the Crypt" or "The Vault of Horror"). Don't watch if you don't want spoilers . . .

5. Favorite story pre-high school: Father's Day

6. Favorite story high school on: The Crate

7. BONUS -- Another Stephen King related favorite movie: The Shining -- Dick's death

8. The Shining -- "Wendyyyyyy . . . give me the bat . . ."

9. The Shining -- "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" (I hafta)

Bauhaus -- "Bela Lugosi's Dead"

You Know Jack

2009-10-29T23:18:00.000-05:00

A second Halloween helping, and in honor of the pumpkin carving party I partook:

2. This is Halloween

3. Return to Oz (Jack Pumpkinhead and Mambi)

4. Halloween 3 (Silver Shamrock)

William Elliott Whitmore -- "One Man's Shame"

All Bones About It

2009-10-28T18:13:00.000-05:00

Because Halloween's just too fucking awesome to contain into one entry, let's just start 'er off tonight:

1. The Skeleton Dance

The Zutons -- "Moons and Horror Shows"

Surety is Never Forever

2009-10-27T23:26:00.007-05:00

Nothing makes me happier than being confident in a work of art. People ask, "When you were making (insert work of art here) did you know it was going to be so well received?" Every artist I've seen has been humble in their answer. "Well, I liked it at the time. You never know what other people might think, though."

Bullshit. But good bullshit. You need to stay humble in your statements.

With my work, if I'm really pleased with what I've just done, I do feel that others are going to like it. Currently, I'm writing the second song of my current storyline. So far, if I was an audience member seeing the song, I would think "Jeeze, they're starting to pull lots of tricks out of their sleeves, what's next -- oh shit, they went that far! Whoa ho holy fuck, awe--YEAH!" This isn't bragging. This is the writing process of Patch. What would the audience think here? What if I repeated the thing from the last song--nah, that's not that important of a riff. Should it get really fast -- no, let's just change up the time signature, keep the audience in surprise mode.

I'm pretty convinced an audience would think positively about this song. And I love feeling this. I could be wrong, but seriously, this is the moment that every artist wants to talk about, but they don't have the stupidity to actually say it outloud like I do.

I could be wrong about the song, of course, but fuck off, I'm drunk, and I'm loving it right now.

Jet -- "K.I.A."

Skipping Beatles

2009-10-26T23:56:00.005-05:00

A child at my school knows all of the words to "Man in the Box" by Alice in Chains. I forgot to take into account that Rock Band flaunts that as one of the beginner levels. But I grew up on that song. This kid said that he was going to Powerman-5000 tonight, he said that he met Static-X on their tour bus when he was two.

I asked his dad this as he picked him up and verified it all. This kid loves hard rock. Now, personally, I think those two bands are bogus, campy, hollow artless pieces of energetic flair to flaunt when you're drunk, angry, and stupid (which I like to be on occasion, and that's why I have an ounce of tolerance for these bands. That or I'm ignorant to how great they really are, and radio killed what could have been a good first impression), but I'm impressed this kid even knows this kind of music at his age.

His dad said "Yeah, I skipped The Beatles and went right for the gusto." "Good job!" I retorted. I'd like to see what his musical preference is going to be twenty years from now, coming from a guy who actually started on The Beatles from his own father.

I literally sang "Man in the Box" with the kid word for word on the playground today. Supplementing the Clear Channel version for the dual "shit" bombs, of course. A highlight of my time at the preschool.

Death From Above 1979 -- "Romantic Rights"

Coded Language

2009-10-25T23:51:00.000-05:00

I became aware of Saul Williams through a random YouTube search. "List of Demands", the lead single off of his self titled album was the one that did it. I quickly checked out his work on YouTube and was floored.

Then, a couple months later, Trent Reznor dropped the bomb that Saul would be opening for his With Teeth tour. And that he would be producing his next record, "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust".

I saw him live for the first time in April of 2008. He was scary, how intense he was. I was in the front row, and he was literally spitting on my face with his spoken word, his screams, his convictions. Nothing can make you yawn in the face of his intensity.

Tonight I saw him again. Unfortunately, it was a slightly off night. He was forgetting lyrics, CX Kidtronic (his DJ) dropped some of the electronics at times. He was humble in his apologies. He tends to jump into the crowd, meeting people with smiles and conversation on his way back to the stage. He is the nicest person, and he has a true message. An angry, yet uplifting message in his music. He is definitely one of the top five artists in my influence registry.

So, despite the mistakes, he was still amazing. One of the "truest" writers of our time.

Saul Williams -- "African Student Movement"

Life's Lemons

2009-10-24T23:46:00.001-05:00

Tarot cards, cheesy records, ukes, and Saul Williams . . .

The best damn expensive pasta dish I've ever had in my entire life . . .

Rogue Dead Guy ale . . .

Talking about the nitty gritty, no holds barred . . .

This has been a good weekend.

Again, the affirmation that good people are in my life. I was setting up the drumset in the Patch rehearsal space. The space is still filled with roommate materials. The end of the month should see an instrument only space. Without really even telling me, Dustin, a great, great friend and musical companion (and most likely lead guitarist for Patch now), came over spontaneously. I heard him ask property manager Rick McCoy outside "Is Peter here?" I looked up with a shock. I thought he was around for my roommate. He came into the room and immediately started organizing cables and cords, power strips and instruments. It was one of those seemingly trivial moments that I'll take with me to the grave. People care about this project. People care about me. People know I care about them.

You want to help people out, Dustin? Just keep doing what you're doing. You're fucking number one in my book. All the guys in Patch so far are. Greg, Adri, Dustin . . . and one more that I'll be meeting tomorrow, hopefully . . .

Post-setup, I went out to St. Paul and took in the Selby neighborhood with Ashley, who truly inhabits the Karmath vibe. Combining logic with spirituality, all night long we conversed about the vessel and the soul . . . and I realized that the Dulcimer is one of the most awesome instruments to just sit down and play . . . and it's great for interrogation purposes, as well. Not saying what.

Life is good. Watch, I'll be struck with a fatal illness this week.

Pearl Jam -- "Soon Forget"

Free Pastures

2009-10-23T23:27:00.001-05:00

I'm out of a dollar.

I made a bet. I thought a certain hill led to a certain locale. My companion didn't think so. She knew better. She bet me a dollar. I took her up on it. And lost.

As I was stewing about my dollar, we viewed beautiful, yet creepy houses along the side streets of Uptown. She gave me a candybar.

Before this, we walked around the Lake of the Isles. We talked about what our pet peeves were. I remember her saying "inside furniture when it's outside". I also remember her talking about the Minneapolis skyline. Looking at it from one of the bridges along the lake, she said, "Do you know what the best night to view a city skyline is?" I said, "No, what?" She said "Tuesday night, because that's when most people work late and stay in their offices."

I remember thinking "This is a long walk, but I don't want it to end after the lake." She picked up on that. Then she took my dollar.

We talked 1900's drug stores, tried to save a drunken man who was apparently locked in a glass cage and had passed out on his back (the bus terminal on Hennepin), saw a cop in his squad car browsing Facebook on the car computer outside of the Walker, etc. It was a damn fine walk. A walk that had no hidden underbelly of romance or anything. Just a nice friendly get-together, a friend I had had yet to have the pleasure of meeting one on one so far. A nice way to break the isolation and cave dwelling within my abode, toiling on dark eroticism and audience acceptance. Hard on the brain, that is.

A damn fine walk, indeed. Now . . . how to get the dollar back . . .

Woody Guthrie -- "Pastures of Plenty"

Liberty Cell

2009-10-22T23:43:00.003-05:00

Song 1 of the erotica storyline. Print it out, read along at the show, if you feel like it. Understand why we're doing what we're doing onstage.

WORKING TITLE: LIBERTY CELL

Soundgarden -- "Rusty Cage"

Don't Forget Her

2009-10-21T23:10:00.005-05:00

1) Alcohol.
2) Candlelight.
3) Three music videos.

After this sequence, Patch is written.

I started putting down lyrics and tabs into Acid Pro "notes" tonight . . . pretty excited. The challenge: how to make "lust murder" tasteful to a point of popular acceptance?

"Kept secret from the world, I’ve loved you all
Regret has yet to rear its head
Even in your pieces, you’ve stayed intact
Free as birds, you wear the rust of my cage

How many lives have been taken so far?
How many wives have I taken so far?"

Cage the Elephant -- "Back Against the Wall"

Under the Microscope

2009-10-20T22:47:00.003-05:00

Research. A hell of a lot easier than the "Sound. Of. Static." winter long reading stint, which coalesced into basically 4/5 of "Schematics" work. "LCD" was the only one that came out of nowhere. Funny that that's my favorite of the five.

The LIVE 1.0 storyline (or, I should say, one of the storylines) is coming along nicely. I already know my family will hate it.

RITUAL TYPEOLOGY

Shield Your Eyes -- "Viscera Voltaic Pile"

"Going Somewhere?"

2009-10-19T23:29:00.003-05:00

I tend to write off of inspiration. I see a movie, hear a song. I get an idea.

I watched this trailer right before I went to bed. It sort of turned the storyline for the live show I've got sorting around in my head into something tangible. Realized.

A beginning, middle, and end . . . very Patchy, this movie.

Brainiac -- "Fresh New Eyes"

Tainted Love

2009-10-18T20:20:00.004-05:00

"Why do I do this to myself?"

As both a way to have peace of mind, and to pay homage to what I'm delving into for Patch, I visited the place where Beezelbub came forward after all these years. Inspiration never felt so scary. I was weak in the knees for a good hour.

Into the Epicenter of Madness

HEALTH -- "In Violet"

What's In Between

2009-10-17T21:41:00.004-05:00

My opening disclaimer to Patch:

Relating to "Disclaimer: On Veins and Nothing"

Boards of Canada -- "Dayvan Cowboy"

The Know

2009-10-16T23:58:00.001-05:00

The Lizard People = COMPLETED.
The Lizard People -- "The Know"

After the Fact, Before the Fiction

2009-10-15T23:14:00.004-05:00

"You seem to be doing okay now," she said.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am."

Alice in Chains -- "Sunshine"

When the Twitch Rears

2009-10-14T23:09:00.000-05:00

Two kids were fighting on the playground. I came up to them, pulled them apart, and said:

"Look at me! Look at yourselves! You wanna keep on fighting like this the rest of your lives?! It's all you guys do, is fight! You know why we get mad telling you not to fight? Cuz you'll keep doing it the rest of your life if you don't learn otherwise! You guys know Dinkytown, right? Right over there? There are bars around there with people my age. Adults. You know what a lot of them like to do? Fight. All the time. Sometimes just for looking at each other funny. You give them a juice that adults drink, alcohol, and all they want to do is fight! You wanna be like them?! DO YA?! Jeeze, you're totally going to turn out like that. You don't listen! You're gonna go to jail, you keep it up. If I have to tell you again to not punch each other you're going to my version of jail. The picnic table! You got it?! You wanna be drunken losers in Dinkytown?! I didn't think so! Don't let me catch you punching each other again, or I'm calling your parents and sending you to jail. GOT IT?!

Now, who wants to go into the peanut butter machine?"

Needless to say, I hardly had any sleep last night, and my first sip of coffee was still waiting to be savored. I've also decided I'm going to be a peanut butter monster birthed from the "peanut butter machine" (a stupid plastic orange tube on our playground) for the Miniapple version of Halloween.

The Dead Weather -- "I Cut Like a Buffalo"

Three Coffins

2009-10-13T23:30:00.000-05:00

Nailing the lid on 'er:

Miles Davis -- "Sivad (Edit)"

Chris Who?

2009-10-12T23:05:00.001-05:00

As I was getting ready for bed, it occurred to me that it was Columbus Day today. The first thought in my head was: who gives a shit?

We used to care about Christopher Columbus in grade school. As I grew older, school stopped caring about it, we didn't get the day off, we stopped talking about it.

Christopher Columbus, the FOREforefather of America, represents the imminent growth each child has in their upbringing: we first worshipped Columbus and his discovery of our land. Next, we discovered that he found the place by accident (just like some children were accidents themselves). We found out next that he was an exiled buffoon. Then, that he tortured the people who originally lived in the "treasure utopia".

We grow up worshipping our "fathers" before realizing they're not the best thing since sliced bread after all. Forefathers of America were nothing special. People made them a symbol, something to fall back on. To make sense of America with. We realize that our entire world is full of bullshit "fathers" who look out for us while really looking out for themselves, looking for a little returned interest out of everything they get their dirty hands into.

Columbus is the symbol for the Revelation of Bullshit for true Patriot Americans capable of critical, objective thought.

If you are above the age of 12 and you celebrated this day in its original intent, stay the fuck away from me.

Beirut -- "Elephant Gun"

A Danny Tanner Moment

2009-10-11T00:42:00.001-05:00

When I woke up this morning, on one hand I felt terrible. Physically. One move of the head and I was going to lose whatever I had left in my stomach (funny that I took a shower, washed the blood and muck from my body, despite feeling that way. It goes to show how much fun I had on my birthday).

On the other hand, I felt great. Mentally. For the past quarter year I've felt some foreboding terror rising up within. It all went away this weekend. Well, drained to a point where only a few remnants remain. Enough to draw inspiration for the coming Patch projects.

I received a few gifts from my family. All checks. No tangible "present" presents, but substantial, nontheless.

The real gift, and this sounds like a Danny Tanner monologue, was the affirmation of friends in my life. Friday night I looked around the Rainforest and couldn't stop smiling. Afterward, at home, people were talking throughout the house, and I realized that every single person there was such a magnificent being. The people I hold near and dear to me are true soulmates. The people across the country, with whom I've grown close to, talked to me for 2 hours each over the weekend at some point.

All my life I've wanted to have a close group of friends. A core, a first ring, a second ring, etc. I saw it all in perspective this weekend.

I felt the tension falling out of my brain as each new event unfolded.

The Pub Crawl: meeting new people, having no inhibitions, feeling somewhat attractive despite the pains I took to make myself extremely unattractive, meeting random people that I knew all over the West Bank, dancing the night away with random strangers . . . everything that I've been needing. A friend filled evening turned into a Cowboy Night of introspection, resumption, and comic punishment (puke galore and laughing about it).

It was the best birthday I could have hoped for.

Nine Inch Nails -- "Adrift and At Peace"

.25

2009-10-10T23:23:00.001-05:00

My birthday.

A new era.

How to celebrate?

How's about by combining everything I hold sacred: gore, death, decay, friends, Halloween, debauchery and mayhem. That's a birthday.

And Looooord Alllmighty, was I granted a miracle, son? Hell yeah!

It's called the ZOMBIE PUB CRAWL. And it might have been the craziest night of the year for me.

And the Lord granted another miracle: birthdays symbolize New Years for me. As in, it's my own personal New Year. New resolutions start to be realized and embarked on. Ironically, they're not thought of so analytically on my birthday as they are on the actual New Years, but that's when my resolutions and goals are met. The first entry of this blog I mentioned transcendence, and the hope of breaking certain dry spells.

Guess who showed up on the second New Year just like they did on the first New Year?

White Zombie -- "Blood, Milk, and Sky"

Holy Grounds

2009-10-09T23:19:00.000-05:00

The first birthday celebration, a blast from the past to celebrate the new: The Rainforest Cafe.

I've had some of the most poignant moments of my life at these establishments. One of my best first dates (one of the top ten moments of high school -- "VOLCANO!!!") which led to the relationship with my main high school sweetheart; one of the best birthdays I've had was held here as well: my 19th. This might have been one of the happiest moments of my life so far. Freshman in college, schmoozing with all of Bailey Hall . . . god, that was a good time.

And now . . . 25. The new quarter. The quarter where I have to shit or get off the pot. 1-24 is Preparation. 25-50 is Action. What other way to bring it in than with a nice trip back to the rainforest?

This restaurant, while corny and outright creepy at times, makes me think of my family. All my life I've been into amusement parks and themes and theatrical environments. My family put up with my obsessions and brought me to these places. Once, trying to come up with a family reunion locale, they thought "Why not Six Flags in honor of Peter?" My grandma, 85 years old, rode a looping rollercoaster with me, and loved it.

I imagine I'll continue obsessing over these places once I have my own kids and grandkids. If the wife says, "Well kids, your father and I wanted to take a trip to Disney World, but times are tough--" I'll chime in: "We'll find a way." Wife: "Peter, we can't afford--" Me: "You'd strip them of a chance to go see the Happiest Place on Earth? How could you?!" Wife: "We've been there five times already." Me: "Yeah, what's your point?" Wife: "We can skip it this year."

I get up, take the kids into my arms, and pronounce: "Kids . . . I think we need to give your mother some time to think. She doesn't seem to be herself. Honestly, wife of mine, look at their innocent faces. LOOK AT THEM!!!" Then my kids and I burst out sobbing and running for the car, where I will drive them to the nearest Chuck E. Cheese for pizza and ball pit time.

And to take in the splendour of the animatronic band:

The Beatles -- "Lovely Rita"

Rawhide

2009-10-08T19:22:00.005-05:00

The cold hit while I was inside. I hardly had a chance to be outside this summer, stuck inside doing recording and mixing. And finally, as I'm nearing completion of The Lizard People's "The Boudoir Sessions", it's cold. Pretty soon I'll be coming back into the studio to create a companion piece to "Schematics" and the live project. Something minimalistic in nature, more electronic and stripped down, but it never stops, it seems.

This week (and it's starting to look like maybe next week as well) I've been finishing up Lizard People's "The Know", working on a palette based on Western orchestrations and Elvis-like vocal work. Think Ennio Merricone with a touch of Al Martino.

As I was driving to work, I was thinking about some of the work I've done in this realm. Being that my birthday is this weekend as well, I thought about my grandparents. Birthdays and grandparents seem to go hand in hand. October 10th is usually one of the few times I ever talk to my dad's dad.

A year ago, my grandpa turned 90. For his 90th birthday present, I recorded myself singing some of his favorite standard songs. One of them happened to be Al Martino's version of "Spanish Eyes". Another was Miles Davis' "Bye Bye Blackbird". I turned on "Spanish Eyes" when I got home today and couldn't stop laughing.

When I gave my grandpa the three song EP, the entire family went bonkers for it. "That's you?!" This tends to be a standard extended family reaction to recordings of their family members. On top of that, and I anticipated this, my family prefers me doing standards to doing Patch. After we listened to my gift, they said "What's Patch sound like? Is it like this?" Me: "Not exactly." I turned on an old mix of "Trachomanic" that I had at the time, and they said immediately "That doesn't sound like you either, but I liked the other CD better."

Here are two of the songs from that EP:

"Bye Bye Blackbird"

"Spanish Eyes"

So, tonight I have to revisit the "Spanish Eyes" vocal style to meet Taylor's "Know" wishes. Should actually be quite ridiculous.

Ennio Morricone -- "A Silhouette of Doom"

Recesses and Secrets

2009-10-07T20:44:00.005-05:00

KARMATH:

An existence combining logical mathematical equations (what we deem as fact in the West) to otherwise spiritual phenomenon (what the East deems as fact). Together, they form the very core belief system of my life.

What goes up must come down . . . unless proven otherwise.

I've been privy to some strange events. Miracles, I guess you could call them. True Jesus shit. There are cases where the dead have risen, juice has risen in a glass right before the eyes of the beholder, and a man was once told to go home by his spiritual teacher in order to find out that his wife was cheating on him (this eventually led to my birth).

All the "miracles" I know about can be explained with science. The most sure concepts of the world are math and the unknown. They are proven. There is nothing more finite than numbers. They are what they are. You can't refute them. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the Unknown is sure, given that most of the universe (our own lives) is foreign to us. We don't have a clue, yet we try to explain it all. That's the beauty of being human.

Yet in the midst of it all, we become hindered by emotions. Obstacles. We lose focus. We give up. We have the ability to rest for too long, to take pains at having pleasure 100% of the time, to become enraptured with belief systems only because we, as animals, tend to be social beings. I feel Jonestown was just another flock of birds flying north instead of south for the winter.

We lose sight of the big picture. We don't have to, but we choose to.

I've been guilty of having possession take hold over me in relationships, of being altruistic to a fault, of being lazy, of letting friends go . . . for me, I try to fix whatever I did wrong rather than walk off without a care in the world. At the same time, being too analytical is a hindrance. This is why "fixers" flock to teachers for guidance.

It all takes place in Karmath for me.

KARMATH is a series of musical projects dealing with close friends and my relationship to them. After seeing their struggles with "fixing" their lives, I can guage a pretty good story in order to express what I feel they went through.

Here's a spoiler: the "SCHEMATICS"/"KARMATH" song "LCD" is originally based off my interactions with one of the Brotherhood. He has a tendency to disappear for days on end, not telling anyone where he goes. He's a nomad. I never knew if he did it because he was sad or just busy, and this always concerned me whenever he disappeared. I always knew the remedies to what made him sad, I just wanted to tell him. But I couldn't. You can't give people advice unless they're asking for it. He never asked for it. So none of us would give advice. It goes the same for anybody else. This just happens to be a common practice, hence, a law of Karmath.

I made up a story based off of this line of thinking, about a close friend who is on the brink of suicide. I think I know how to help them, yet when I try to talk to him, we merely talk music, pop culture. We don't get down to the bottom of it, and I feel weak and powerless to the whims of Karmath. "Another way to have him slip by". When his friends and I try to have an intervention, it goes through the same motions. As we're talking about the music and comedy, the man sneaks out, never to be seen again. We couldn't do anything to stop him.

But can we break the laws of Karmath ever? Could we stop the man in his tracks and say "Here's exactly what's wrong with you." No. That might put him over the edge more. I haven't written past this checkpoint, but these questions will be asked.

The real person has never wanted to commit suicide, it's based off of him and me talking about music and movies once we were done talking about a pressing concern. It helped heal us without fixing it entirely. Things persisted, but we were friends again. I imagine this happening with most close friends of the world, especially close friends who try to "fix" their lives.

I'm planning on doing another project based off of a friend who found himself jailed, at the bottom of the barrel for so long, and who has become one of the nicest individuals I've ever met. You look at this guy and you look at all the depressed emo imbeciles abound in our world and you go "What the fuck do all these other people have on this guy?! Shut up!" This guy lived what you want to live, and not by choice.

Another project is based on me dealing with my possessive hindrances that, thankfully, I've kept in check for a couple years. They have since risen to the surface, following a strange event that meant nothing really to the others involved but tainted me forever. You ever see your loved one fucked by another at your consent, merely because you thought it would be fun to have no boundaries? In so many words, be prepared to find out more about yourself than you ever imagined. And inside, it's not the pretty stuff that comes bubbling to the surface. If you want to maintain that relationship even after battling demons in your head, you'll go crazy. That is, if you're like me. But you're not, so, you don't care as much. The others didn't. It's a tough place to be in. I'm still in that place.

What does all this mean? Why am I writing this? It has nothing to do with today's events. I worked and recorded (I battled a squirrel, but that turned out to be not that exciting). In a lapse of novelty, I guess I'm resorting to what's to come. Next weekend I'm having a writing session for the project dealing with me. I'm kind of scared, to tell the truth, to be by myself in a motel (most likely) delving into the darkest recesses of my head. A place that's been on for the past two months, filled with creatures I never thought could be bred within. At the same time, I'm excited to come out with extremely visceral music and art. It will no doubt be some of the most violent work I've ever done. The studio will be made in two weeks, ready for the live band, who will be taking on this violent work. Three members, four, five . . . I'm not sure yet. Three is the bare minimum, at least.

We'll see. Stay tuned.

The Smashing Pumpkins -- "Where Boys Fear to Tread"

Coma Red

2009-10-06T23:57:00.003-05:00

I am sitting in bed, listening to "Sleep", a CD made for the sole purpose of putting one to sleep. I took it from the nap room at Miniapple, having had constant battles with sleep whenever we put the CD on in our Discovery Room. Having an aquarium lighting up the room ever so slightly, the rest of the room's totally dark and silent with that CD going . . . it's a recipe for disaster. Every day I fought sleep along with my coworker. Eyes were heavy, heads would bob, we'd scare ourselves awake. So, having moved from the Discovery Room into another room, we've since changed CD's, and I took it home so that I could finally engage in the "Sleep" slumber I lusted for all summer long at work.

Now as I listen to it, it keeps me awake.

I think about work. I think about summer.

I think about a coworker who got fired because she succumbed to "Sleep", snoozing on the job. The director caught her more than once, and the coworker lied about it. "I was not asleep," she said. Well, it's kind of hard to lie when we all heard you snoring.

I even had to rat her out. Having been in this coworker's position of fighting sleep (although I think the coworker deliberately fell asleep, it wasn't just a sudden onslaught of food coma tiredness) I lessened the time she slept to a mere 10 to 15 minutes in my forced disclosure (which sucks, by the way, I felt like a snitch). She actually slept for a good hour with me sitting by waiting for the director or the administrator to come and catch her. And lo and behold, she was caught. Go figure.

She was on the higher ups' "list" for other behavior. She just didn't fit at a child care program. Anyway, I was present when the administrator and director decided to fire her. So I knew about a good week and a half before it happened.

The entire time, the coworker kept saying "You know something." She was super suspicious, seeing the administrator come around (she hardly ever comes around, but when she comes around more than two days in a row something's up), prospective interviewees were being led past the Discovery Room. It wasn't the nicest job on the higher ups' part. Personally, I think they were trying to frighten her.

I felt terrible. I was in on who were the favorite interviewees. Shit, I even had my say on who I wanted to take her place (she eventually was the one who got the job). The director fully agreed with me, not that I had anything to do with the final decision, but the point is the director was talking to me about the inner workings of the firing and the entire time I was smiling and pretending nothing was up in front of the doomed coworker.

It came to be the day when the firing was to take place. I went into work with a feeling of foreboding and queasiness. I even talked to Taylor about it. "I feel like a rat, man." Yet, when it came to be nap time, even after lying to this coworker's face about her getting to go home early because of being overstaffed, I was okay. I felt okay.

I tried my best to make her feel happy in her last moments of work. We actually had a lot of laughs, and I was trying to show her that I cared. She was supposed to be fired at 1:00, but the administrator came around at 2:15, so we talked a long time. Finally, the admin showed up at the school. Even before she asked to speak with the coworker, the coworker looked at me with such disappointment and disdain, as if it was my fault she was getting fired.

Thinking about this in bed right now: in my experience, when I've been nice, giving, and as altruistic as possible to people, those people have been the ones who have outright shunned my existence if we had come to a dire situation. The ones I never showed much interest in, having been 100% my fault they got canned or something, they just went on with their lives. I tried everything I could to sweeten this person's doom, and she hated me for it.

Bein' the nice everyman has its drawbacks. That's who I feel I am at Miniapple most days. I've gone from aid, to assistant, to day care staff. I've been all over. I'm the Everyman. I now meddle in all the different portions of Miniapple naturally. So, when shit happens (a child is misplaced, a parent is disgruntled, etc.) I take the fall or am blamed. A lot of that was happening today at work, even. I have to explain to parents and coworkers that we're a team with many different rooms and functions working at the same time, we're bound to make mistakes here and there.

You make an impact, show a smile, extend a hand, the receiver, feeling deceived, will feel nothing but the lowest contempt for you. You can't win.

Thom Yorke -- "Black Swan"

Hair o' the Dog

2009-10-05T21:39:00.004-05:00

Nothing beats the harsh reactions of children to an extreme haircut. For instance, my own. I went from a shoulder length Robert Plant style to a short, less threatening Flock of Seagulls style. Here are some of the reactions:

1) "You -- you look like ME, now, Peter!"

2) "You're gross."

3) To another child about me: "He doesn't look that scary to me."

4) "Your hair's doing something."

5) "I like your hair. I'm sorry I called names to you before."

I said, "Like what?"

"Like 'Pumpkin Peter'."

6) Toddlers not recognizing me anymore and crying when I held them.

7) "It looks like you shaved your hair."

I said: "I cut it, actually."

"That's what I thought you did."

Basically, most of the time kids would hear my voice, talk to me while facing away, turn to face me, then stop talking. Their eyes would glare, mouths open. They'd cock their heads, smile, and not say anything, forgetting what they had to say.

To their credit, it is a pretty drastic change, though. Parents didn't recognize me, either.

Thanks Ashleigh!

Beastie Boys -- "Pass the Mic"

Screamtown

2009-10-04T15:52:00.008-05:00

It doesn't feel like fall. It doesn't feel like Halloween. My favorite time of the year. Even after forcing it down your throat, it still doesn't feel like it. But I'll take it. Lord knows I'll take anything Halloween straight up!

Last night it was Screamtown, a newer Halloween destination in Chaska, MN. I visited Screamtown two years ago, their first year, when it was across the street from Canterbury, and it was pretty lame. This year, they've upped the anty with their new location. They sport five haunted houses.

1) Klown House: a dizzying romp through orange fences filled with deranged killer clowns. Fun, but not the greatest.

2) Terror in the Corn: a muddy trail in the corn. You go through sheds, up hills, through scarecrow gatherings. A group of faceless burlap sack people made clicking sounds in my face, a couple doing a low growl, reminding me of the crab zombies in Half Life 2, near bloodied scarecrows. Terrifying, actually. This was fun.

3) Rabid Alley: Basically a pitch black number of shacks, where you can't see anything. I bonked my head three times and got lost once. The Dark Knight soundtrack plays along with two other creepy animal soundtracks. It actually makes for a pretty good mindfuck. People hiss at you throughout, screaming at you in monkey squeals. Again, a mindfuck. Not a lot of haunted houses do mindfuck.

4) Oak Blood Forest: Another outside adventure. It's actually more beautiful than it is scary. Lights shine throughout the woods, making for really creepy images. You see silhouettes ahead outlined in green in front of a cemetery. People with chainsaws chase you. Interesting and campy.****

5) Hillbilly Hotel: The best haunted house of the park, if not one of the cooler haunted houses I've been to in the last couple years. It sports a number of different elements: first you travel into a trailer, a claustrophobic dark maze where buttons reside on the floor, waiting for you to step on them, emitting loud noises and weird gory scenes behind grilled booths. Very sideshowy. You get outside, and crazy hicks run around screaming and drawling. It makes for a crazy experience, since the schtick of hillbillies might be true. It creates a terrifying "it's possible" thought process in the back of your head as you go through the compound. Junkyards follow, then you enter another trailer, this one with more "hotel" paraphernalia. Low orange lighting, strange hotel rooms, hicks running around. Creepy. And awesome.

****A "monster" told us a story about the Oak Blood Forest attraction. The first year they opened in the new locale, they had the chainsaws in the northeast portion of the forest. Apparently, the closest neighbor, a widow, had a husband who died in a chainsaw accident, and she had been hearing chainsaws and screaming every weekend. She filed a complaint with the park, and of course they changed the position of the chainsaws. Jesus.

I highly recommend this to any Halloween nuts out there. But be prepared for mud. One of our cars got stuck in the parking lot, and I almost spun out and got stuck on the dirt road into the field. Your shoes will have layers of mud on them as well. The corn maze was quicksand. Look past this, don an air of campy good humor, and prepare to jump, and this might be the best thing you do all October.

Their website:
http://www.screamtown.com/

Marilyn Manson -- "Kiddie Grinder (Remix)"

Sole of a Man

2009-10-03T15:32:00.005-05:00

Here's a conundrum (and a candidate for a Fuck My Life sentiment):

I have size 7 feet. It's never been too much of a problem in the past.

I went shoe shopping today. I went to two places. Both places didn't have shoes in Mens 7. So I asked around. Both stores told me the same thing:

"Yeah, Mens starts at 8. You could try Boys."

Me: "They have 7 in boys now?"

"No, they go up to 6."

So . . . huh? Are my feet destined to dwell inside Dutch Clogs the rest of my life?

Air -- "So Light is Her Footfall"

Gaugen Cliffhanger

2009-10-02T23:49:00.000-05:00

I've always liked the taste of metal.

I can't put my finger on it. There's a definite reaction within the mouth upon tongueing anything metal. As a kid, apparently held by the clutches of Freud's oral relapse, I would sneak tastes of the latch of my dog's leash. Spoons and cutlery, having been beaten slightly in a dishwasher, will give off this sensation as well. Along with smelling gasoline at the local pump, putting your mouth on metal was one of those special opportunities, something your parents couldn't get mad at you about. They didn't know.

At least I know that when I finally get around to shooting myself in the head tomorrow by way of wrapping my lips around a barrel, I'll know that I can go out with the subtle joy of metal on my tongue being the last thing I experience before painting the walls behind me.

Gomez -- "Airstream Driver"

The Sigh

2009-10-01T09:42:00.006-05:00

The new chapter of my life begins today. Remnants of the last chapter echo throughout, felt by the emotions bleeding into the fresh air, like a delay pedal's feedback waning out slowly but surely. I've said goodbye to my best friends. The house is now completely foreign. Two months ago you would have never thought that it would be like this. My third roommate moves in today.

The most persistent feeling, though, deals with The Sigh. Whenever The Sigh is had, one of the most poignant moments of your life has just started. They usually come after feeling crappy about something, losing a job, friends, a death. For me, it usually pertains to breakups.

After I go through a breakup, I usually spend the next hour sulking, walking slowly, hunched over in the rain. A thought will enter my head, a positive one, at the same time a Sigh comes to my lungs. Both converge, and as The Sigh is emitted, a smile is left on my face. "Wait a minute . . . I'm free . . . I'm back on the market . . . I can do whatever I want! I'm OKAY!!!"

This tends to happen with relationships not lasting more than six months for me. If they've been more than that, The Sigh is miniscule and often unnoticed, since negativity and the new novel single life tend to be a little shocking.

I'm currently in a post-sigh mode. I was somewhat sulky this morning, having gone through what I can only call a breakup last night. What with casual dating, friends with benefits, becoming exclusive, staying single but exclusive . . . let's just say we've broken up. Since that's what I felt today. A decision was made on my part, she seemed to give it back mutually. This is golden Sigh material. A perfect brew.

Options to make the Sigh come unnaturally: get really hungry. Buy something you find particularly tasty and refreshing. For me, it's usually a sandwich with mayo and potato chips. Eat this when you're not too starved and shaking. Eat it while talking to someone. The conversation will most likely turn happy, and you will be left feeling a little hungry, still wanting more food. This makes me want to do things. I don't want to sit around and sulk, food coma getting the better of me.

There's always drinking. If you need a quick fix there's always the hard shot. But this leaves me depressed once it wears off a little. Wine. Wine it up. Get a bottle, drink it while working on something or while talking to a roommate. As you get a little lubed up, again, the conversation turns happy and things aren't so bad. The Sigh is just around the corner.

How NOT to make the Sigh come: don't listen to beautiful music. Even if it's happy and uplifting, if it's beautiful, you'll only think of shitty things. "She was beautiful, man", I'd think. "Her blonde hair is just like that flighty flute melody." Depressing music will get you in the dumps as well.

Don't watch movies. At all. Not even comedies. Same ordeal as above.

If you want to purposefully hold off The Sigh: write. Delve into it all. Get it all out and you might come out with some of the best work you've ever done. Then, since you're probably going to be in a funk, do the above activities for Sigh inducement.

Today: a ham and cheddar sandwich with mayo and chips did it. 3/4 into it, I emitted a loud sigh . . . and smiled.

The XX -- "Crystalised"

Five Down.

2009-09-30T19:03:00.005-05:00

Fifth and last goodbye:
NAME: Adri Mehra
ASPIRATION: Move to Uptown where da ladies at. To have a change of scenery. To continue performing in music related endeavors with Patch, Sharp Teeth, Nikki Schultz, yet call Uptown homebase. Northeast seems to be a little off the beaten path when it comes to the "scene". I feel it. It's more of a neighborhood feel, a place to settle down. Adri's doing what I should be doing. Getting in the middle of the hustle and bustle before the bustle moves on without him.
BEST MEMORY: Adri was my gateway into the Brotherhood. It all started through him. He and I met while at the University. I had seen him around, talked with him here and there. It wasn't until we were in a play together, "The Laramie Project", when it all came together. We talked music, clothes, girls. He was my other, my brotha from anotha motha, to the point where we were inseparable. He and I would show up to parties together all the time, people thought we were gay lovers.

The entire run of "Laramie" would have to take the cake, though, for the overall best experience with Adri. The play is somewhat of a downer, considering it's all about a homosexual boy who's beaten and tied to a fence and left for dead. Despite this, Adri and I could never stop laughing. Not at the subject matter, mind you. But backstage we'd constantly be doing things we weren't supposed to do. Whispering and laughing hysterically to the point where we could be heard out in the audience.

One night we had to be off book, meaning we had to know our lines through and through without calling "LINE?!" to the directors. The entire cast was competent in this. We knew our shit. We started to have a run-through, everything was going tip top. Adri's first cue came about. The spotlight was on him. Everyone was silent. Drama was at the extreme. He stood there. Strong, competent. He cleared his throat.

And in total character: "LINE?!"

I fucking lost it. The entire cast did. We were rolling around on the floor laughing.

Adri was scolded, he learned his lines. Through and through. At the dress rehearsal, he was on fire. He was getting laughs galore from the faculty audience. The hardest monologues were seared into place. Then came his easiest role (in "Laramie" each cast member plays about five or six characters).

The Bailiff.

His only line: "All rise."

He gets out onstage. Again, the dramatic pause. We're all choking ourselves up for the big courtroom scene. Tears in our eyes.

In front of an actual audience:

"LINE?!"

I fell off my bench I was laughing so hard.

From then on, Adri and I always shared a private joke. If you screwed up, tripped, made a dufus of yourself, you pulled a "bailiff".

Queen -- "Dragon Attack"

A Man's Call of Duty

2009-09-29T20:26:00.005-05:00

Ye olde debate: the toilet seat. Up or down?

The heat is on at work as new men gain employment at the Southeast school. The one adult bathroom has now been impeded by heartless souls who leave the seat up, leaving pee driplets for all to see on the rim.

Nevermind the fact that it's the RIM OF A TOILET. You ever going to sit on that? No? Just . . . you just don't want to look at it, right? Three drops of yellow? O-okay, just clarifying, crossing t's and dotting i's, is all.

What's the cleanest part of the toilet? Sure as hell ain't the rim, amirite? The seat. Yeah, the seat's the cleanest. Ass cheeks don't really pick up too much in terms of germs, I could be wrong, though. So, we're all making a fit about reaching down and bringing a basically germless piece of porcelain onto the rim of the toilet.

Here's the thing. I have it ingrained within my skull to put the toilet seat down at all times. Growing up, I had a dog who had an obsessive pension to drink toilet water in obscene amounts to the point of pukage. So yeah, we always put the seat down to save ourselves a cleanup. Now I persist on putting the seat down by habit, only slightly aware of my honorable duty to help my fellow females out.

Here's the thing: it's not that we leave the seat up on purpose. It's because we forget. We couldn't give a shit either way. We reach down and put the seat up all the time. We look at the pubic hair ridden rim as we let 'er rip. We put the seat down . . . usually, as we flush.

There's always that one time, though. You forget. Whoops.

It's not our fault the rim is usually our making. It's not our fault we have to put the seat up and down. We're trying to get by with what we have. We look at the rim every day, doesn't bother us. Most of us have the courtesy to put the seat down for y'all.

There is the man who constantly persists on leaving the seat up. Personally, I hope to sometimes go into the bathroom right after and find that GASP! I don't have to reach down and put the seat up! I win! A little stress off my day! Even when I go in on these post-forgetful sessions to take a full out dump, I don't mind if I have to put the seat down.

For women, you don't need to concern yourselves with the seat. As far as you're concerned, the pubic hair rim doesn't exist. Bathroom ignorance. Alright. Don't you think a visual reminder is always healthy? Like taking a shower before you go swimming, it prepares you for when you have to clean the rim at your house. It exists, you can't hide from it forever.

Think of it as a service to you. Our petty forgetfulness and unfortunate tuneout of chivalry could be your pre-pool shower for when cleaning day is right around the corner, and it's your turn to clean the commode.

In other words: lighten up.

Florence and the Machine -- "Dog Days Are Over"

A Starting Point Glimpse

2009-09-28T20:43:00.006-05:00

By candlelight I sit. Operatic drama does not blast out of my Victrola. My own music does. That, or moody acoustic music made to put me in a somber mood. A state of moody decision making. Relationship woes. Song ideas. Strange anecdotes to share. Stories for the purpose of prose or songs.

The place I visit . . .

. . . a culmination of four different projects, seeming at first to have no connection, but inevitably my brain ties it all together into one vast story and world. This is not a happy place, per say. It's a responsibility. It's a nuisance. It's exciting. Pleasurable. Nauseating.

The artist's landscape is one akin to love. Love is a feeling where you want to cry but can't exactly bring tears to stream out of your eyes. My art taps into that same feeling. It's hokey to say Art is Love. It's not. Art is Shit. It means nothing to you. You don't feel my love.

You just hear me say I love you. And you make up the rest for yourself.

Fever Ray -- "If I Had a Heart"

The Wind Storm

2009-09-27T20:57:00.001-05:00

A foreboding cloud loomed greedily up ahead. Ten miles away from my current position. I drove, watching it carefully. Suddenly, my car swerved violently in the wind, as I was on a bridge. Emitting "Whoa" such as a cowboy would with their bucking horse, I gained control of the wheel ever so slightly.

As I neared my next destination, I recognized another car, much smaller, prevailing against the hard blowing wind. My car was larger, wider, and should have been more stable. Riding behind them, I noticed they were laughing inside. There was no wind.

As we drove along, I noticed that they were going to the same place I was. I parked nearby, catching a glimpse of the knowing aura surrounding the car. I spied two people I knew getting out. They were laughing, walking cutely, braving the weather in coats and leggings. I stepped up to say hi . . .

. . . as I left the store, the clouds had blown past, leaving behind the evidence of a short, yet violent rainfall. I missed it. In a fit of giggles, persisting to cling onto my psyche from the hearty conversation I had had with my friends, I traveled to the top of a nearby hill to take in the new sunshine over the city.

I realized the wind had died down. Inside and outside.

Lou Barlow -- "Gravitate"

Exploring Past the Tip of the Iceberg

2009-09-26T20:25:00.000-05:00

Call me blind and stupid . . . but I never knew about this place:

The Tea Garden
http://www.teagardeninc.com/

Might just be my new favorite date spot. From hot tea to tea shakes to tea chillers, it's like Bubba describing all the different kinds of tea in the world whilst cleaning the barracks floor with a toothbrush.

Picture this with tea:

Beck -- "Venus in Furs (Velvet Underground)"

An Affair with Sony Animation

2009-09-25T21:11:00.000-05:00

As stated earlier this year, I'm a huge Pixar fan (sadly, my countdown of YouTube videos have been removed due to copyright infringement . . . that took a long time to collect). I tend to shun other animation studios' work. "Shrek" relied on pop culture musings and jokes rehashed from other movies. Pixar stays original in their humor. "Ice Age" was alright, "Madagascar" was the same caliber of "Shrek", pop culture blahdom. Plus, the animation of other studios flat out sucks. It almost seems a tier above video game cutscene animation.

That's why I was surprised to find that Sony Pictures Animation's "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" could come out as one of my favorite computer animated films. It's Pixar caliber. Better than "Cars", and more laugh out loud funny than any Pixar film. There were moments where I had tears in my eyes.

I love the book. I read it a lot to the children. It's clever, the pictures are great, the descriptions are vivid and funny. The movie takes the book and embarks on a mad scientist story. Complete with the awkward failure, to the impending success, the inevitable notoriety of the inventor and their creation, flying too high and burning wings, chaos caused by the machine, the creator needing to bring down their creation . . . it's "Frankenstein" with food. It's a story we've all seen, but you forget that it's a recycled format. The dialogue is extremely witty and the animation is flat out cute.

Four stars! Four fantastic fucking stars!!

Woods -- "Rain On"

Me and My Geek Squad

2009-09-24T19:22:00.005-05:00

Life Lesson #7648:

Make friends with computer technicians. They will be your greatest allies through the tribulations of your life.

I'm glad to call three of them my best friends.

Led Zeppelin -- "Friends"

The Missing Beak

2009-09-23T18:34:00.002-05:00

An interesting anecdote as told by my coworker today in the nap room:

In Milwaukee, I have a neighbor, a grandma, who told my mom a story a little while ago. Something that happened to her 7 year old granddaughter.

She said that her grandchild went on a field trip to the Shed Aquarium in Chicago. Things were going smoothly. The children behaved, willingly herded to each tank. Staring at each of the exhibits.

All of a sudden the teacher realized that my neighbor's grandchild was missing. They started to panic, looking all over the aquarium. They looked in the Oceanarium room, and found her near the beluga whales, to their relief.

On the bus ride home, the child spoke to her teacher. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I did something bad."

The teacher shook her head. "No, it's all right. You know what you did, and we have you safe and sound. It doesn't matter. It's okay."

The girl persisted. "No, I'm sorry. I did a really bad thing."

The teacher also persisted. "It's okay, dear, really. You're on the bus with us. You scared us a little but it's alright."

The girl shook her head. "No, you're going to be mad at me. I did something really bad."

The teacher started. "No you didn't--"

She stopped as the child started to unzip her backback. Inside, quiet and frightened, was a penguin. A live penguin that had crawled into the girl's backpack. And they had traveled halfway to Milwaukee with it on the bus.

The teacher yelled "Oh my god!"

Apparently, as far as I can tell, the girl had snuck behind the scenes into the penguin exhibit and had somehow lured a penguin into her backpack.

They called the aquarium, turned the bus around, and retured the penguin before returning to school.

--------------

I just about shit a brick when I heard this story.

Blue Roses -- "Doubtful Comforts"