Machine of Soft Tissues (unfinished and scrapped)

And what did the angels call her? And which one of them was held responsible?  Which of them had the audacity to suggest a creation like her?  This spectacle of femininity.  This anomaly. 
In the morning she stirs and all of God's creatures take notice.
Machine of soft tissues.  Bone and sinew that compose something all together brilliant. With a radiance to rival our very own sun.


Each bat of the lashes like the opening salvos of a decades long war.


Lips that, when pursed, cause hairs to stand on end.  Startling.  That feeling of unintentionally running your fingers through taut cobwebs.


And what did the angels call her?  What did they name perfection? Ah yes; [Omitted].

The Commission

One of my new coworkers has commissioned me for a introduction to rap music sampler.  I pride myself on my ability to put together excellent mixes, but I've had my head so far out of hip hop over the past 5 to 10 years that this has proven to be somewhat of an awakening for me.
She actively asked me for the mix with no provocation or previous conversation on the matter.  I applauded her curiosity and gladly obliged. To add a bit of perspective, this request had come from an adorable petite little porcelain princess who lives in middle american Ohio where, I can only imagine, Confederate flags are a common occurrence on many a neighborhood front porch.   Thusly I consider this an honor and an opportunity to broaden the horizons of someone who is genuinely curious.  I highly doubt that what I had to her will be what she wants or expects.  That's understood and dually noted.  My prejudice places her hip hop knowledge to be limited to that of late 90's Ja Rule and and aught Jay Z.  She also mentioned something about Rhianna which she quickly and sort of apologetically conceded with, 'Oh well, I guess that's not really rap'.
No, my dear. It's not.

I take this duty very seriously and have been working hard on it on my 4 day holiday weekend.  I'm doing a listen-through right now of what I think may be the final cut. I won't post the track listing as, honestly, I don't want to date myself nor am I confident in my choices.  I tried to choose some of those most  accessible and potent songs in my library.  It just so turns out that 6 of the 14 ended up with J Dilla production.  Kanye, Outkast, and The Roots have also made the cut.  Admittedly It's very niche.

While on memory lame I stumbled upon one of the dopest and ballsiest instrumentals, in my opinion, in rap history.  Every now and again Diddy (back then Puff Daddy) would come out with something that reminds you of just how he got on top.  Too bad this track was squandered by one of his many lackluster MCs and his own incessant yelling over top the song.  Here's G-Dep's  'Special Delivery':

It has no bass line!

To be fair, though, Outkast did do that first (and also with no proper drum track) with one of my dearest songs off of their ATLiens album, E.T. (Extraterrestrial):

M83

Dino Valls

I've recently discovered and fallen in love with the work of Dino Valls.

You can view more here.

Biophilia

Although I haven't been completely happy with a Bjork album since Vespertine, I'm still very excited about the new release.

björk: road to crystalline from Björk on Vimeo.

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.