Author: colter

Lest You Think Anything Has Changed in 20 Years

I’m finding lately that reading old magazines can be more enlightening than reading current magazines.

"It’s the 13-year-old girls who buy the records in mass quantities, so the guitarists who make huge amounts of money are in vocal bands. Think about the psychological conditioning that starts to happen: I do less, I make more. It doesn’t matter. Nobody notices. The more poppy the band becomes, the less musicians there are. Certain days I’m real bitter about our lack of success, but other times I know this is the right way. My big gripe is the way the radio stations program the listeners: It’s all aimed at the pre-adolescent, everything. I’m proud to be in an underground band."

— Steve Morse, 1982

And Now a Few Words From Malcom Forbes

Here are some great quotations that I came across recently
from Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990).

“Profits shouldn’t be the sole measure of success. It’s also making sure that not too many people are getting screwed by the system, and that people understand that the system as a whole is working for the benefit of the most people. I’m not suggesting that they do that just to be nice to everybody but to be damned sure that the system survives, and it doesn’t help if everybody thinks he’s getting the short end of the stick.”

“I’ve found it hard to swallow a Republican candidate, and in the privacy of the voting booth, I didn’t always [vote Republican]. The majority of the people lean to the Democratic Party because it is the party of greater awareness and greater conscience, and the voice of the Republican Party is often the voice of reaction.”

“The Republican label is endangered, in my judgment, because often the people who call themselves conservatives are merely using a polite word for reactionary.”

“In terms of Government and the economy, I simply think that the way you conserve what you value is to anticipate change, and if you’re not in the vanguard, at least be flexible and open to the nuances. You don’t preserve by dropping roadblocks in the path of change.”

— Malcolm Forbes, 1979

Uncle John in Beautiful Veracruz, Mexico

I added a link on the left to my uncle Johnny’s website. It’s sort of a photo-blog of Mexico. It’s some really interesting stuff. My favorite so far is Santa Anna’s hacienda.

Another website I’ve been meaning to mention is Arkansas Interstates. It has webcams of all current highway work zones. It’s great for seeing what the highway looks like before setting out. It’s nice to know that state is taking advantage of technology. Too bad they’re not promoting it at all. They really should put this on the road signs.

You Can Make a Difference

Recently I’ve discovered that this web thing was true. The Internet can make a difference in people’s lives. Ross Rice has just informed me that he scored a gig as Peter Frampton’s keyboardist/guitarist in part because the Frampton Organization liked what they saw on his website (which I designed and maintain). Additionally, my other musician web project, JanCyrka.com, has enabled Jan Cyrka to recently discover that Jeff Beck is a big fan of his. Jan was not previously aware of that, and has thus been residing on cloud 9 for some weeks now, as Jeff Beck is perhaps his primary influence.

So yay me! I don’t do either website for any profit; I just did them for the love, and it’s this sort of thing I get in return. Plus occasional perks (Jan has in the past hooked me up with aftershow passes for Satriani/Vai shows).

In other news, I bought a guitar from Dweezil Zappa! Zappa.com is having a big garage sale.

The guitar I got is an Eddie Van Halen replica from GMW. The white one in the picture. Only $300!! I suspect because of this. I think it’s illegal now to profit from Ed’s trademark stripes. So now I have to sell some guitars to make room. Seriously, there is no more space in my living room for another guitar. So I’m selling my OLP and Jay Turser guitars for $150 each (no cases) to anyone who wants them. They’re amazingly high-quality guitars for the price. Both are gig-able instruments and are comparable in quality to American Fenders (well, the Turser is, but I do use the OLP as a backup guitar in Superflux). More info on the guitars page.

Happy birthdays out to Robin, Tracy and Arika! Three girls to whom I freely pledge my undying devotion despite the vast geographic distances between us.

Strange Bedfellows

All of these domains are registered to a guy in Little Rock:

www.kerrypicksedwards.com
www.kerrypicksvilsack.com
www.kerrypicksgephardt.com
www.kerrypicksclark.com
www.kerrypicksbayh.com

and they all forward to a mile-long page at GOP.com (the Republican National Committee’s website) that tells of the horrors of John Edwards:

http://www.gop.com/RNCResearch/Read.aspx?id=4345

I’m impressed. If they registered all those domains, then that means the RNC probably wrote up mile-long pages for each of the other contenders as well…pages that they won’t get to use. Those are some motivated cats. I humbly bow to the superior flying monkey forces of the Republican party.

Sadly, www.kerrypicksclinton.com is still available, despite Matt Drudge’s fever dream scenario of a John Kerry-Hillary Clinton ticket.

Dogpatch II and Reunion

A fine weekend I had. Saturday I had my 10 Year High School Reunion, which went really quite well. It was great to see everyone again, and even better to see that so few people had changed much at all. Sunday I ventured back to Dogpatch with some friends for a deeper exploration of the wilderness that our beloved local theme park has become.

There were so many pictures that I had no choice but to arrange everything via a standard Photoshop Gallery. I added some customizations for easier navigation, though. Click here to get lost in the woods with us.

Localist

Did I not mention that I’m an officially published writer now? I wrote an article about Atomic Guitars (and the loss of regional guitar stores in general) for Localist, an arty regional publication for which people around here actually pay $4. Not that I got paid or anything, so I’m still not “professional.” The article also used my pictures of Atomic Guitars.

Also, with all the talk about John Kerry’s past, here’s something I did not know: www.theelectrasrockandrollband.com

Also, also: Imogen Heap’s blog.