Blepharospasm. I’ve had one for two weeks now. It has spread to both eyes. Supposedly it’s caused by stress. What am I so stressed about? Maybe this constant feeling that I’ve always got stuff to do and not enough time to do it and a month full of Superflux gigs every weekend.
I think I’m also getting dark circles under my eyes. Maybe I’m just imagining things. Or maybe I’m getting old. Or maybe I’m stressing about getting old which is causing blepharospasms…
Atomic Guitars is closing its doors. For those who don’t know, Atomic is the place at the end of my street where I can walk to get my strings and play the vintage amps and weird guitars. Johnny Adams is the proprietor, and this ends his 6-year run of selling the funkiest stuff in town. He cites a faltering guitar market in general and the recent takeover of all things instrumental in town by Banjo Center and Sigler Music (which appears to no longer have an actual website) as the culprits. Incidentally, Guitar Center is now number 1 in Google for the term “banjo center” thanks to clever Google Bombers like me. Perhaps you’ve seen the handiwork of Google Bombers on terms like "failure."
Within the last year, we’ve now had four local music stores go under: Stonehenge (Geyer Springs), Music Makers, Maumelle Music and More (where I taught), and now Atomic Guitars. Clearly it’s a crappy time for guitars and for anyone who’s not a chain.
So, to help Johnny out, I bought a 7-string pickup, several packs of strings, and another guitar. In my defense, it was $50 and red. It’s a Kay, but it plays and sounds really great for an old cheapie. It’s crusty and rusty and needs a good cleaning. It’s going to be my project guitar. I’m going to cover it in Japanese advertisements from 1958. I bought a Japanese Advertisting Yearbook at a book sale at the Arkansas Arts Center a few weeks ago and the artwork tripped me out. It’s an amazing blend of East and West. More art than commerce to me. It reminds of the sort of thing Douglas Coupland covered in God Hates Japan, only 40-odd years removed and thus far less frenetic and much more balanced. Pictures coming eventually.
For some reason I’ve really become fascinated with old stuff – antiques, buildings, whatever. I’ve been perusing a variety of photologs dedicated to these sorts of things, particularly Shaun O’Boyle’s Modern Ruins. Walk through the halls of this abandoned orphanage (which burned down in 2000) or this hospital. There are even more creepy examples, like the abandoned insane asylum.
On a lighter note, deserted farms in Iceland are far more picturesque.
Cute Rock Chick. Isn’t she lovely?
Why are my pictures so lame?
And this is my cousin. Yes, she and I have a similar genetic makeup.
It’s time to get thankful.
I’m thankful for lightningfield.com. I’m still digging through this man’s photolog and enjoying every minute. It’s addicting. It’s feeding a hunger I didn’t know I had. Plus it gives me great links like Ghost Town Gallery and Defunct Amusement Parks and a geographically accurate map of the London Underground and Jeff Bridges‘ entirely hand-written website.
I’m thankful for Blue Man Group who are expanding the boundaries of art and contradicting Sammy Hagar‘s theory that there is only one way to rock. They are also responsible for the amazing Exhibit 13.
I’m thankful for the music section of the Laman Library because I never would have heard Stereolab’s Dots and Loops without it.
I’m thankful for my job, despite the lack of windows in our office now.
I’m especially thankful that Natalie lets me kiss her on a regular basis. I think that means I’m her boyfriend. She’s amazing.
Of course I’m thankful for all the typical stuff: remarkably not-lame parents, family, friends, apartment, health, wealth, etc.
Why does the universe hate me?!!
I’ve waited almost two months for this day. Already irksome is the fact that Fate has conspired to bring two great shows to my town on the same night: the Incredible Moses Leroy and John Mayer. I should mention that these two acts are responsible for recording two of my favorite albums of the 21st century. Playing it safe, I chose the Incredible Moses Leroy.
Chris, Heather and I get to the venue, Sticky Fingerz, at 7:15 or so, to grab some food and get good seats. Most shows at Stickies start between 9:00 and 9:30, so that’s a good plan, right? Wrong. Nothing was even set up onstage until 10:00pm or so, and the opening act, Lucious Spiller, didn’t start until around then. So between 7:30 and 10:00 I’m sitting with my people watching ESPN college football highlights. Twice, because they loop evidently. I kept seeing the same plays.
Eventually, the John Mayer crowd starts streaming in a little after 11:00. D’oh!! My friend Randall went to the show with 6th row seats he bought from a guy outside the arena. He made it to Stickies just in time. Fucker!
The band comes in and sets up around 11:00, and plays from about 11:30 to 12:15 or so. That’s it. I had plenty of time to talk to them, and their reasoning was that the crowd wanted dance music, not their stuff. No real Moses Leroy fans there (except me, Chris and Heather and the table of people I helped bring in). I did get an autographed CD, and Ron, the lead singer and songwriter, gave me his email address. So that’s cool.
My friends go off elsewhere to continue drinking. I go home, but as soon as my shoes are off, I realize I forgot to pay my tab! So I go back to Stickies and get that done. I should’ve tried to convince Ron to go hang out somewhere, but he had some chick begging him to go to Discovery…I think he just wanted to chill out on the bus. Oh well.
Epilogue to this debacle: PBS aired John Mayer with Double Trouble (Stevie Ray Vaughan’s rhythm section – a show I actually thought would be really cool before I even knew it was happening) this same evening. I had set my VCR to record it, but evidently I failed to properly program the show, so it didn’t catch it.
AAAAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!! Colonel Klink why have you forsaken me!???
This has to be one of the freakiest coincidences ever to occur in my life. My brother Trey was brainstorming for fundraising ideas for the Arkansas AIDS Foundation that he helms, and he came up with a charity debate between Ben Stein and Al Franken.
That was two months ago.
Today I received this from Arkansas Business.
There has to be a connection. It’s too astronomical to comprehend otherwise. Not that they’re debating, but that they’re doing it in Arkansas.
On a similar track, a few months ago I thought it would be cool if John Mayer were to do something with Double Trouble, since he’s such an SRV fan. Then I found out about this.
So it would seem that the McCorkindale brothers are somewhat clairvoyant.
Some random comments:
I find it ironic that the word “monosyllabic” has 5 syllables.
If you find yourself wondering, “what the hell is the Fibonacci series?” Well, now you can find out: http://www.textism.com/bucket/fib.html
Taco Bell has done something I never thought I’d see a major fast food chain do: they improved their product without increasing the price, and actually improved the healthiness of it by a smidgen. They’ve introduced the “Fresco” style of their products – which entails replacing cheese with a light salsa. So instead of cheese, you essentially get diced tomatoes. Hoo-Ra! They’re marketing it as a lower-fat, healthier option, which, as a statement from Taco Bell, is almost too ironic to exist.
Their website even has a nutritional chart. Somehow I think this might someday become admissible court evidence in another “Your company made me fat” case, but I’m glad to have it.
Also, never buy squeezable jelly. Squeezing the jelly from its container is an unnecessarily laborious process. The visual and auditory similarities to certain rectal expulsion processes is too great to be ignored, thus thoroughly ruining any appetite one may have previously had.
At work, I had previously depended upon the neighboring office’s coffee service (utter swill, but not so malevolent as to be undrinkable), so moving to a new place necessitated the purchase of our own coffee maker. I lobbied for better coffee, so they sent me to Sam’s and said get what you want within x budget. So I got an OK coffee maker but I also invested in some Starbucks beans (far be it from me to further extend the global domination of Starbucks, but it was either that or Folgers) and a grinder. It’s amazing the difference good coffee can make in life. Well, better coffee anyways. And I’m not just saying that because I’m amped up on unnecessarily strong coffee (in absence of any measuring devices at the office, I judged by sight, a skill that still requires refinement).
In addition, we have the added bonus of being able to play music in the office without bothering the neighbors. So this morning it’s Starbucks house blend and Victor Wooten’s Alive in America. Life is improving.
Often I get spam emails full of totally random words. I received this today:
“hoff acanthus spouse curvature dishwater shimmy prevention proficient echinoderm seek aruba karate carrara eyebrow deluge ancestry afterimage cameraman scaffold hartman dorchester curl leery forbearance brackish girth bramble
exonerate kick node pig amherst wonder bahama anise despite glove valentine budge bini letterman coastline exculpate codpiece barcelona decrypt segregate”
I should mention that this arrived in the form of an HTML email that my spam detector deactivated into source code. These random words were set to a white font (spam within spam!) so that they weren’t legible. The main text of the email was some “click here” nonsense to some crappy website. I got much more enjoyment out of the utter randomosity of these terms. I have a theory that the future of humor is randomness. Steven Soderbergh’s Schizopolis has a couple of scenes where two characters speak in random words:
Woman: Arsenal. Nose army.
Elmo Oxygen: Nose army. Beef diaper?
Woman: Nomenclature.
Elmo Oxygen: Throbbing dust generation!
Woman: Drum tissue outburst.
Elmo Oxygen: Jigsaw. Uh, fragment chief butter. King surgery mind?
Woman: Bunny bucket.
Elmo Oxygen: Precision galley sponge.
Woman: Smell sign.
It’s really hard to come up with truly random words. The human brain is hardwired to associate. Try coming up with random phrases sometime. Bucket flange.