Goodbye to Portland
Well, we are declaring victory for the night. We are 85% packed after a good long day of work. We're going to crash early tonight, and rise early tomorrow for the move. Get the truck home by 9am, load it, then go to the new place to drop of stuff we'll need, then put the rest of our stuff into storage, then return the truck.
Then, we make a new home, albeit a temporary one.
My next post will come from the beach.
It's been an amazing 7 years in Portland. This is a great city, without a doubt. As I commonly said, it's about as much city as I want to deal with.
I've changed quite a bit since living here. One thing this place has taught me is that we are heavily influenced by proximity. What is around us, influences us. The universe vibrates, and we entrain with those vibrations.
Portland has been good to me. I'll miss it.
But exciting days are afoot...
Would some Dem named John please say something?
Where are you, John Kerry?
I've heard virtually nothing from you since the Dem national convention. This means that anything you have said (probably lots of verbiage) has been lost in a sea of noise. You aren't saying something interesting enough that will resonate with enough people to get any attention.
Be bold. Come out and Speak Your Truth. I don't want to hear mindless nonsense and speechmongering. The Reps have mastered the rules of this stupid game, and the Dems are not going to win with those tactics. It's time to change the rules of the game, and Freaks everywhere should be taking the visionary lead.
Do something interesting, and quick, or you'll lose this election just like Gore lost it in 2000.
History seems to be repeating itself.
Pre-travel log
So I'm beginning to research different options for our upcoming UK trip. I want to in general avoid prepackaged tours; I'd much rather explore on my own for the most part. But I think a one-day tour through the Highlands may be interesting leaving out of Edinburgh. So I thought I'd post several links on this entry:
Welcome to the land of the Free™
Many of you have heard by now that
Cat Stevens was diverted to Bangor, ME and denied entry to the US. But what isn't as widely reported in America is that
Marillion was also on the plane:
Speaking from Bangor, Marillion singer Steve Hogarth, 45, told PA News: "We flew today on Flight 919 to Washington Dulles en route to Mexico City where we have two shows.
"At 1453 (Eastern Time), the plane touched down. As it touched down, an announcement was made by the stewardess that we were not landing in Washington because of bad weather.
"Then there was an announcement made by the captain saying they stopped to refuel. But after another period, of about 10 minutes, the captain made another announcement saying it was, in fact, an FBI security alert."
Mr Hogarth added: "We all had to get off the plane."
Passengers then went through immigration and Mr Hogarth was warned not use his camera.
He said: "This was pretty peculiar and I had wanted to record it for my diary.
"I then met a security guard who said the two people escorted off the plane were Cat Stevens and his daughter."
Mr Hogarth added: "I was really stunned. Everybody knows he converted to the Muslim faith. He is a pacifist and a great songwriter."
He said security men were swabbing bags as they began the process to reboard.
I think Marillion are discovering firsthand that America is a very different place now than it was last time they were here, 7 years ago.
Fallenness
Yesterday and today have been the first fall-like days of the season. Windy, blustery, highs in the 50s, lows in the low 40s. These are likely remnants of the hurricanes down south.
Normally this time of year is my favorite. I love the fresh feeling of cool when you've been baking in heat all summer long. And historically, lots of good things have happened to me in the fall.
Though this trend is definitely continuing, I don't have the same feeling of excitement now that fall is here. I think it's because it's been the mildest summer I've had yet in Maine. There are typically a few heat waves in Maine summers; stretches where it's uncomfortably hot at night and hard to sleep. This year, we had none of those. So it still feels like I'm waiting for summer to land, yet autumn is already rearing its head.
I've said all along that I hope we get a good "Indian summer" this year once we've settled in to Ocean Park.
I think I just need to find more ways to generate heat in my reality.
when it rains ... go to the UK.
Now this is exciting. I have wanted to travel to the UK for many years, and for a variety of reasons. And, I had always wanted to schedule a trip to the UK to coincide with
Marillion activities, to be able to see them on their home turf.
Well, as it turns out, we'll be able to do exactly that in March. An unexpected gift came our way, which will allow my family to travel there. It's funny how timing works out. The first 3 days of our trip will be spent carousing with a few thousand Freaks in Minehead, near Cornwall (actually it may be in Cornwall; I'm not sure where Cornwall's border is). Then we'll have about 10 days in the UK afterwards.
This will, of course, be a huge homeschooling project for us as well. We'll have to decide exactly where we want to go. There are many possibilities,
Glastonbury, Tintagel, the Rosslyn Chapel, and of course the old standbys like Stonehenge, not to mention London itself. We'll most likely go up into Scotland for a bit as well.
On a spiritual and intellectual note, I've been interested in the Arthurian legends for many years, and the grail image -- particularly the idea of the grail quest -- has been perhaps the central metaphor in my spiritual pursuits for the past decade and a half. There are of course many places in the UK to visit that are connected to this legend; indeed, the entire island seems to resonate on some level with this mythos.
Luckily, we have several months to plan things, and we can always be spontaneous once we get there. But this should definitely be the adventure of a lifetime. It's many years overdue in my case; I know LM was ready to go, and Mo is more than a little excited.
Thanks to everyone who made this possible.
Morning Sounds
This morning, I woke up to the sound of my daughter reading aloud to herself in her room.
Of all the sounds one could hear in the morning, this has to rank near the top of the list. I'm so proud of her. She's worked very hard at reading, and it's clear that the light bulb has come on in recent weeks.
I find it very interesting; literacy experts still aren't quite sure what causes people to be able to read. Their best advice is something close to "surround them with books and workbooks, and eventually they'll get it."
I'm happy to say that my daughter is very much getting it.
The Terrorists™ strike close to home
Now this is funny. As my readers will know, we are
moving soon. As a result of the move, we are going through The Purge, trying to get rid of things we won't need. Well, we had (note the tense) a big padded recliner that we wouldn't have space for in our new apartment. So we decided to put it out on the street with a "free" sign on it, hoping that we could help someone out with it.
Well, little did we know that the person we helped would be a pyromaniac.
Last night, at about 2:30am, we were awakened by someone repeatedly ringing our doorbell. I got up to see lots of bright red and blue flashing lights coming in our window. And I could smell smoke. I opened the door to see a fireman standing there.
"Is this your chair?" he asked.
I was a bit disoriented, and my natural suspicion of authority figures kicked in.
"Ummm, yeah."
"Has this chair," the fireman asked, "been sitting out here for long?"
"Yeah, we're moving, so we put it out with a 'free chair' sign on it, hoping someone would take it."
I looked over to where the chair was, and saw a steaming, smoldering, blackened pile of charred wood and metal.
"What, someone torched the chair?"
"Yes." the fireman said. "I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't also a fire inside the building."
"No, no fires in here. Wait, you said someone torched my chair."
"That's right," he said. "So everything is OK in here? This chair has been sitting outside for a while now?"
"Yes, since early this afternoon."
"OK then. Have a good night."
"Ummm, yeah."
I'd have to say that this ranks 2nd on my list of most disorienting awakenings in my life. Needless to say, I've been quite sensitive to an abundance of fire energy for the past 10 hours... it's going to be an interesting day at AAA, that's for sure...
Nine-Eleven™
Once again, people are mourning the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9-11-01. I don't think I can say anything any better than
what I said 2 years ago, on the first anniversary of the attacks.
Mae oui
My new guitar,
Mae (short for Maple Lake), arrived yesterday. First day, I broke her in in the studio and drilled a hole in her for a strap button. Trial by fire.
She told me her name, but so far she's given me 2 full names: Mae Wecht and Mae East (she was made in China). Let's see which name she ends up using most consistently. Mae Wecht definitely seems to resonate more at the moment. (UPDATE: I had a good long talk with Mae today. It's definitely Mae Wecht).
Anyway, this guitar is impeccably built. The lacewood on the back and sides of the guitar is stunning. This guitar is larger than Annabelle, but its tone is somewhat similar. It's just louder, fuller, and bassier because it's a full acoustic design, not a hybrid like the Pathmaker, as well as having a larger, more resonant body. It's a bit thinner than I thought it would be, but that's fine. It took some getting used to; the lower bout sticks up under my right armpit more, because it's a much larger guitar. But now I have a strap that hangs perfectly; I like it sitting up high. Playing this guitar is fun.
The guitar came with a near-perfect setup; I installed a set of Elixir Custom Lights on it and it was good to go as is. I won't need to make a new saddle for Mae as I did with Annabelle, though I may try anyway just as a lark. I definitely won't modify this one though; it works just about perfectly. The action on the guitar is very nice.
I recorded some guitar tracks for Too Bad For You last night, doubling along to another track I'd made with Annabelle a few days ago. Together, these two guitars sound wonderful. I'm very happy, the Freakwitch album will sound much better with these 2 guitars on it.
Though Mae is louder than Annabelle, Matt actually noticed more when I played more quietly; bottom line, this guitar has a much larger dynamic range, which will bode well for recording.
I sold my old Alvarez Yairi to get this guitar. The Alvarez served me well in its day, but the combination of Annabelle and Mae suits my needs perfectly these days. I'll probably end up favoring Mae for studio use and Annabelle for live performance, but who knows. Both are great guitars, and I'm lucky to have them.
Funny how things just keep appearing in my reality that make recording this album easier and better... I'm very grateful. :-)
Electile Dysfunction redux
A pagan/political listserv I am on had a thread about doing some magic to ensure that the November Presidential erections are "fair and honest." This is my response:
This is an interesting idea, however I have some
meta-concerns about it. Put simply: I believe a fair and
honest election is impossible at this juncture.
"Tweedle Dumb or Tweedle Dumber" -- or more accurately,
"Tweedle Neurotic Servant Of Corporate Greed or Tweedle
Sociopathic Servant Of Corporate Greed" -- is hardly
fair, no matter how votes are counted, no matter how
many people with brown skin are disenfranchised, no
matter how many Supreme Court justices decide who should
be president.
The two party system is nothing but a smokescreen, a way
to placate the American people into believing that their
vote is somehow meaningful. "I live in America, where
I'm free to choose Coke OR Pepsi!" I'm here to say: cola
sucks, rots your teeth, and has no nutritional value
whatsoever. They may as well return to putting cocaine
into it.
As far as honesty goes, who knows. I myself am
suspicious that Florida 2000 is the first example of
election rigging. It's just the first one that was close
enough that everyone paid attention.
Don't mean to be overly pessimistic here, but this
system is broken. If we are going to do magic to
improve the American political situation, the we should
start at the base and fix the problem, not merely pull
the wool back over people's eyes into thinking that
votes between a Rep and a Dem will make any substantial
difference.
This system is broken, and needs to be replaced.
I actually laughed out loud a few times when I wrote this. I particularly liked the "neurotic servant of corporate greed" vs "sociopathic servant of corporate greed" line.
Like a slashdot for politics...
This new site is kind of like slashdot for politics. No wait, it
is slashdot for politics! It'll be interesting to watch. Though I suspect it will reflect the general state of American politics today, as does geekdom in my observation. For every radical or progressive geek, there is a hardcore libertarian or right-wing nutjob. I'll probably check it out for a while.
Censored 2005: The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2003-2004
Interesting Reading, indeed. From the
Project Censored Exposed page:
Project Censored is a media research group out of Sonoma State University which tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media.
I was glad to see that wealth stratification was the #1 story, though all of the 25 look interesting.
Abolition of work?
An old speech by Bob Black from 1980 has been published on
Alternative Press Review. Here are the first three paragraphs:
No one should ever work.
Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.
That doesn't mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a ludic revolution. By "play" I mean also festivity, creativity, conviviality, commensality, and maybe even art. There is more to play than child's play, as worthy as that is. I call for a collective adventure in generalized joy and freely interdependent exuberance. Play isn't passive. Doubtless we all need a lot more time for sheer sloth and slack than we ever enjoy now, regardless of income or occupation, but once recovered from employment-induced exhaustion nearly all of us want to act.
This reminds me of other theories by the Zerowork collective from the 1970s. I particularly like the
Brezsnian emphasis on "freely interdendent exuberance." The world definitely needs more of it. This is a very interesting read.
PIRATES! Recording PIRATES! Industry PIRATES! Profits PIRATES!
Go read this. Despite the RIAA's moaning about violent criminals marauding the high seas, it looks like BMI is posting record profits. Very interesting indeed.
Just to be clear, BMI is one of the main performance royalty collectors on behalf of artists (along with ASCAP and SESAC). So they aren't technically in the business of selling albums, but rather collecting royalties on behalf of songwriters whose songs are performed on the radio, on TV, in movies, etc.
So technically, this could be seen as irrelevant to the recording industry's woes. More and more songs are being performed, and more royalties are being collected on behalf of artists. But record sales have nothing to do with it.
Perhaps the most salient point of the article is that the argument commonly put forth by the RIAA that "piracy hurts artists" isn't the most accurate assessment of the situation, especially given that most artists earn very, very little from album sales.
Regardless, this article is further evidence that the situation is not so cut and dry either way. Clearly, there is a relationship between "piracy" and record sales, but what exactly the relationship is can be hard to pinpoint.
Does Annabelle need a mate?
Maybe so. The
folks who make
Annabelle have started making a new line of guitars. The Pathmaker line (what Annabelle is) is a custom design by Abe Wechter that is made in a guitar factory in China. Abe discovered, however, that due to economies of scale, the factory can make more traditional acoustic designs even cheaper, simply because they make so many more. So he decided to import some of these designs, and give them the "Maple Lake" moniker, since they're not Abe Wechter designs.
Annabelle is a great guitar, esp. for live performance. It's pickup system is top notch, and the guitar plays like a dream. Its only weakness is that its acoustic tone is not as loud and full as other guitars, due the hybrid design (some of the guitar is solid wood, and doesn't vibrate as easily as a normal acoustic). So I've been thinking about getting a 2nd acoustic, both for those kumbaya moments around the campfire (ie, playing acoustically with others and without amplification), as well as for recording with microphones in the studio.
Since Annabelle is a small guitar, it makes sense for my 2nd guitar to be a large body instrument, a "jumbo" guitar. And it just so happens that Maple Lake has a jumbo, with the exact same pickup system that Annabelle has. Very cool. I want to get this guitar. I'll have to sell my old acoustic to do it, but the Yairi is in the same category as Annabelle, and of the 2 Annabelle is better suited to my needs at this point.
There is some amount of trepidation trading in a guitar I've had for nearly 15 years, but in the spirit of Buddhist non-attachment, it's clearly true that a large-bodied acoustic would better suit my needs.
UPDATE: It's a done deal. I sold my Alvarez, and ordered the Maple Lake 2614 Jumbo. Looking forward to playing it! Hopefully it will tell me its name in a timely fashion.
Surveillance Camera Players
This has to be the best mode of protest I've seen in quite a while. The
Surveillance Camera Players do performance art in front of government surveillance cameras. One of their recent performances is a summary of Wilhelm Reich's
The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Go look at this, it's well worth it, especially in light of obscene images
like this one.
