On Mastering the Art of Dining Alone

Let me apologize for my lack of updates.  Things have been a bit topsy-turvy as of late but all in the name of progress.  Good things have been happening and I attribute it 50/50 dumb luck/initiative.

I've recently leveraged myself into a new, more lucrative position that allows me 3 day weekends.  This is good news however you slice it. What it's brought me to realize, though, is that I have nothing to do with my extended weekends.  Ultimate Frisbee Sundays have been going off pretty well for the past several weeks which has been my primary form of exercise.  I haven't been to the gym in quite a few weeks upon realizing that all that time spent on the elliptical hasn't at all prepared my for frisbee season.
But besides frisbee I've been mostly twiddling my thumbs.  I've become very comfortable in the last months with sitting alone at a Chinese buffet or at a sushi bar by myself.  I kinda like the idea of it.  There's a big city isolation about it that I find attractive but it's also lead me to admit to myself that I'm a very lonely individual.

And most certainly not lonely in the 'oh no, we have to find someone to hook Dave up with' way.  Pair coupling would be the worst possible solution.  Whenever I find myself in a situation where I feel that someone is reliant on me for their emotional happiness or if I feel smothered I quickly distance myself and shut down.  It's ultimately a very self destructive pattern.
The loneliness I've been pondering is more of a communal disconnection.  Not to say that I don't have a great circle of friends.  A number of them I spend a good deal of time with.  I think that I've romanticized   the role of the misanthropic loner so much so that I now don't know how to escape that mindset.


Anyhow, this was supposed to be an upbeat entry.  Back to the awesome stuff that's been going on.
My Golden String Radio show, with the working title of The Alchemist Lab, starts today and every Saturday from noon to 2.  Tune in and join on the chat.  There will be guests, freestyle rhyme sessions from individuals who shouldn't be rapping, trivia, and mostly just me being awkward and playing songs because I don't have anything to talk about.

I'll be getting fitted for a tux today for my main man Bumoltua's wedding in Cleveland coming up next month.  I'll also be booking my room because I plan on getting wine drunk in public that night which will be a first and I'm sort of excited about it.  While I'm out that way I'll likely go sit at the sushi bar by myself again and eat all the rolls.  If anyone is in the Boardman OH area in the afternoon/evening and would like to join, feel free. Otherwise I'll be like Dr. Frasier Crane in this season 4 Episode:

I promise to update more frequently than I have been over the past couple months.  I've got a number of drafts that need finished.  I'll likely be posting the playlist for my show on here as well.  Until then, godspeed.

The Dissertation

Excerpt from a recent letter I'd written to [Omitted]:

...The thing about Sisyphus is that he doesn't need chains.  He doesn't require prodding.  His is a labor of love. There is a personal investment in that stone and seeing it perched at the summit of that hill. Respectively his heart breaks each night when it hurdles back down to the valley.  What we have here is an indoctrination. He is not bound to that stone any more than we are bound to our children's well being. Atlas can put the world down any time he likes.

"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." - Albert Camus 'The Myth Of Sisyphus'

An Architect's Dream

Kate Bush, one of my all time favorite songwriter/performers, is releasing a new album of reworked songs from her two most critically successful albums: The Sensual World and The Red Shoes.  The track-list leaves me a bit underwhelmed (personally I would love to hear reworks from The Whole Story and The Kick Inside) but the fact that she's touching up songs that she wasn't entirely satisfied with on the original releases is totally justifiable.  I am very excited to hear the new versions of:

 


   &


 

One of my favorite and most relatable lines in any song is featured in the latter when she sings 'I don't want your bullshit.  I just want your sexuality'.  There are few song writers as well versed and passionate about her content.  I was assigned to read Wuthering Heights in high school and didn't make it past the first few chapters.  After, at around the age of 23, listening to Kate Bush's song adaptation I went back and reread the whole book.  It wasn't great.

I'll leave you with one of the best examples of her use of imagery and double-entendre.  Off of 2005's Aerial album, An Architect's Dream is one of the sexiest songs you will ever hear.  Ever.  And she does it without being overt.  Without ever saying what need not be said.  It's like sitting under a honeycomb.

Jeff's Doin' a joke

With or without context it's hilarious.

I wish I was in a position to give you the day you deserve.

VHEMT

I first came across the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement via an interview on one of my favorite podcasts, The PK and J show.  A lot of the sentiments of the movement resonated very strongly with me and have been much more eloquently put by founder Les Knight than I have ever been able to put them in conversation and text.  My attempts, on more than one occasion, have resulted in no less than name callings and de-friendings.

So I'll share this very logical and level-headed interview that he did over at Viceland.com for your reading pleasures.

Glen Goins

I'm going to be a front man one day. 

That's just the fact of the matter.  It's a bold statement from someone who can hardly sing but it's what's going to happen.  I can't stand not being on a stage, and thus far in 2011 I've been on far too few.  I've been far more productive and proactive, musically and in other regards,  since the beginning of winter.  I've gotten a great deal of fulfillment out of recording and working on new material for various projects and the idea of performing it makes my salivate.  

In my primary project I share vocal duties with two other accomplished front men who've together been in more bands than I'm aware of.  I've never had any experience being a lead vocalist and I'm very insecure when it comes to my vocal ability.  The number of takes required for me to put down a vocal track in the studio at least triples theirs.  None the less I feel a very strong sense of value and that I bring something to the team that otherwise would go unfulfilled.  

A lot of people have been curious as to why I've made some of the decisions I've made and decided to work with who I have.  Among more minor reasons, I've been afforded the opportunity to study under one of the best front men this town has ever seen and I'm very lucky and thankful to be in such a position.  Along with one of the best funk bassists and band directors around and not to mention the total amount of experience accumulated between the 6 band members equaling 30+ years.  There's an amount of contribution that I haven't felt was asked of me in older projects.  This is the most comfortable I've felt musically probably in my short performing career.  

I'm gaining my voice.  Both literally and figuratively.  I'm finding pockets that I'm comfortable in realizing where my strong points are.  I'm practicing all the time.  One of the luxuries of living alone in a big house is that I can sing at the top of my lungs and not have to be concerned with room mates or neighbors.   

I've modeled my vocal style after the late great Glen Goins, herald to the Mothership, of Parliament/Funkadelic (and later Quazar) who can be seen at the end of the following clip singing down the Mothership in Houston, hands up palms open to the sky as if saying 'this gift is not of me but comes from he whom all good things flow'.  This was before I was born.  When most of the great music was already made.  

Church

I don't kid myself into thinking that I can ever even emulate such an amazing talent, but I can damn sure try to imitate.  If one doesn't aim high then what's the point of trying?  

Glen Goins died too soon, as too many of the great ones have, but that only allows us to appreciate fully what gifts he had to give in his short time. 

Wide eyed with wonder

When all is said and done and we stand face to face with those ancestors that we never imagined existed but felt coursing through our veins our entire lives; ancestors that lived through famines and droughts, wars and upheavals. Those that lived through insurrections and regicides, slavery and exodus. They will look at us, wide eyed with wonder, and they will ask us how it was to live through the last days. 

Hearbeat From Inside the Belly of the Whale

I've been pretty musically busy as of late, even if on my own which may be preferable.  I just submitted a new song for Band #2 which seems to be a final addition to the album if all goes well.  That one goes by the title of Drought Song.  I usually hate self-aware titles but the I think in this case it's fitting and better than the previous working title, Blessed Daughter.
I'd been "working" on that one all winter.  By that I mean I had the verse, chorus, and bridge melodies down musically and I'd been singing the chorus in my head for about 4 months.  That was when I was freaking out about global water shortages.  Now after I'd rewatched Steven King's The Stand and I'm now following that up with BBC's Survivors, I'm now freaking out about pandemics and super flus so I wrote a verse about that.  I laid down a scratch vocal and mailed it off to the rest of the band to do with what they please.

Anyhow, what I was intending to get around to was sharing this instrumental I put down last night on my iMac in garage band.  I've gotten off my ass and started putting down new demos this weekend since I really have nothing else to do.
I oftentimes have song titles before I have any music in mind which I think is why I have such a hard time getting anything done.  It's really hard to write a song to a title rather than naming a song after it's content. After about an hour of work and a wee bit of editing I have another title I can scratch off my list.  Just an instrumental at this point.  Probably going to stay that way.  I don't know if it's about Jonah as much as it is gestation.

Heartbeat From Inside The Belly of the Whale by Unwelcomed Parade

And by the way, Survivors is a really good show.  It's on Netflix instant.  I just finished up the first season. Unfortunately they'd cancelled it after the second.  

Ultimate Sundays

This is a flyer made by JC Farris for our upcoming Sunday Frisbee games.  This probably won't be happening for another week or two as we're expecting snow again for this weekend.  I'm only sharing this now because I look like a badass bronzed Adonis.  And if there's one thing I love more than myself... 

actually I got nothin'. 

The Colour of the Earth

I've gone on and on with my praises for the latest PJ Harvey album 'Let England Shake', and as much as I do love this song and think it's near perfect to close the album, the purpose of sharing this is to point out the style and panache of PJ and company in the beginning a cappella.  UK Fashion at it's best and most functional. 

Also the air of nonchalance with which they perform.  So badass.

So Yu Thot Yu Culd Spell

A lot of fun was had last night at the spelling bee.  I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.  The Lemon Grove donated a bottle of tequila for the contestants which added a nice variable into the competition.  I know out west they usually have drinking requirements for their adult spelling bees but I wanted to keep that up to the discretion of the participants.  

Photos by Jimmy C. Farris after the break.