Mariposa, Cali

Some friends flew in from Madrid - off we went to Yosemite. We were there for only a day and a half, but we got in some pretty good hikes. We did about 2/3rds of the Upper Yosemite Falls trail. We opted to turn around and hike back down at the top of the tree line, where it gets much steeper and you are exposed more directly to the sun.

We then chose to drive to the city of Mariposa and drink at the Hideout, a local favorite. Then, we bought a pizza and a few bottles of Malbec and went back to the Airbnb up in the hills near Mariposa to watch a movie for the night. A comedy at which we laughed and laughed together. It was, of course, about love gone wrong. A man feels pressured into marrying the wrong girl, a fact that surfaces comedically as he begins to have feelings for the right girl. They both had the correct recessive genes for it. 

My friends departed for LA yesterday afternoon. Things have returned to normalcy here, which is mostly just work and sleep. The boy is away at camp for the week. His first and longest stay away from us that involves more than just a sleepover at a friend's house. 

We hardly know what to do with ourselves, though that has always been the case. 

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GBH

I went to see another hardcore punk rock show last night in Petaluma - GBH and Niis and a local opening band. They were all pretty good, if you're into that sort of thing. It is often interesting for me to go see punk rock bands because, as Kim Gordon pointed out, you're there to watch people believe in themselves. 

The opening band included a guitar player who I've written about here before, though I can't seem to find it now. Her name is Allison. She worked at a guitar shop up the valley and did a great job cleaning the fretboard of my Martin acoustic guitar. She was changing genders when I met her. She had apparently been born a male. She was also changing the hands with which she plays the guitar. Last night proved she succeeded wildly. Her playing was great, as was the other members of the group. 

When I came home after chatting with Allison I tried playing the guitar flipped upside down. I tried some of the simplest chords, and within minutes became very frustrated. It doesn't make sense. My right hand should be more dexterous. It wasn't. The rhythm that came from my left hand made matters worse. I only tried this for about half an hour, but it was incredibly difficult. Infuriating. I couldn't understand how anybody could dedicate themselves to such a thing. 

At one point the lead singer of the opening band announced where free Narcan inhalers can be requested. "We all know somebody who has died. Everybody should have one with them all the time." 

I was in no danger of overdosing, but it did seem like something possibly worth having. Everywhere I go I run into people who are doing all sorts of drugs. I wonder how they do it. We are all aging. We have all aged so much. The time needed to recover from almost anything keeps stretching further and further into the future, though it is easy enough to envision the horizon arriving quite unexpectedly. 

While the headliners were playing I was near the stage, a little off to the side of the mosh pit. Somebody pushed me from behind and I bumped into the guy in front of me, which sent him just slightly into the oblong area where punks conduct their group ritual rotation. He turned and pushed me back pretty hard. He seemed very angry, and was very muscular, but short enough that I wasn't too worried.  

"Sorry, bro."

"I'm not your brother."

"Yeah, we don't have any midgets in our family."

He swung at my face but I knew it was coming so it was easy enough to lean back and away from. I was able to punch him in the side of the head but all it did was hurt my hand enough that I knew boxing was out of the question for the remainder of the night. We tussled to the floor where there was more space to fight. I was lucky enough to end up on top of him and somewhat pinned him for maybe a second or two. It wasn't how I was expecting to spend the evening. Security was there very quickly. They both dragged the little guy outside with the help of a couple revelers. They saw that he took the first swing, I guess, because they only asked if I was okay. 

Later somebody told me that he's a constant local nuisance. They keep their eye on him.

I imagined him stabbing me in the throat when I left, but it didn't happen. Maybe next time we run into one another.  

Niis

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Participation Trophy Wife

See the connection? He looks more and more like his mom as he gets older. So do I. In another couple years I'll look like a soft pile of laundry. 

I need new clothes. When I think about departing for NYC in a couple weeks I realize that most of my closet looks as if it was recently pulled out of a hobo's pocket. I've been over-spending and under-earning for many months now. I no longer work for a company that showers me with free stock bonuses. My job is now privately owned. My income has been cut in half, though my purchasing impulses have remained consistently strong. My credit usage is bullish while my income is bearish. For the first time in several decades I have credit card debt. I had to pull money out of savings to pay some of it down, which is not what's supposed to happen, especially at my age. It's important that I don't eat all of the cans of dog food before I need them. 

See the dog on the boy's hat? It's what writers do, draw out connections, belabor them, deny having done so. Etc. 

I wrote the above earlier today.

After that, I spent $600 at the snowboard store. Well, it's a sports store, but we were there for the boy's winter rental, a tuneup for my board, and I also found two pairs of pants I liked. I don't wear jeans any more, so life has become more expensive. I bought a new backpack over the weekend, also. I'm certain that I am feeding an addiction. I know the feeling pretty well, have been thinking about it more and more. Purchasing is pornography without the satisfaction or shame. It feels secretive. I'm compelled to divulge. Etc. 

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Luminal

Raquel, taken on a date-night last week, or the week before, at Kruder & Dorfmeister and Thievery Corporation. 

The connective tissue, of course, between my last two posts was me dying in my sleep. Now, a third - loose, dense, and adipose - completing the trilogy. 

The night before last I went into the city (where I live that means SF, my NYC friends would laugh) to meet an old friend, coincidentally from NYC, and Florida before that. We left "the city" and went to a somewhat famous steakhouse that's been in operation since the Golden Gate Bridge was built - Buckeye Roadhouse. We ordered expensive cocktails and ribeye steaks, while we discussed the acquisition of either phenobarbital or pentobarbital. Our choices seem to be a Mexican pharmacy or a disreputable veterinarian. 

We discussed other things, also. The conversation circled back to suffering and how to either face it or avoid it permanently. We came to very few conclusions. It is what people start talking about as they watch their bodies decay and lose their vitality. Well, men do. I don't know many women who discuss these things, or at least not in the same way. Women do yoga and brunch, this somehow allows them to stay connected to their lives. Well, some of them. Do you enjoy my categorical thinking.

I did a friend's radio show yesterday. It was fun. We talked about soul music and why it has such a powerful effect on the listener. I tried to convince CS to come to California so we can get him on the radio. It's what he needs, I think. 

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology.

I am still in bed. The coffee has been brewed. I can smell it from bed. It summons me upwards, but the body does nothing, trapped in this imaginary liminal space.

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... this was it

I have an odd foreboding that something terrible is going to happen soon. Something more, or something else. It is the feeling that something is going to happen to me... I have been filled with anxiety and dread; laughing less, sweating more, unable to relax. So much so that I had to stop drinking. I mean alcohol. It was pushing me towards madness. Into the maelstrom. 

A friend passed away last week - an accidental heroin overdose. Or, that is the best information I have about it. I saw him recently in NYC. We had reconnected a little bit and had been sharing music back and forth. He was a nice, sweet guy in a dark world. His death surprised few people, though it filled many with sorrow. 

There is not much difference, for me, between a suicide and an accidental overdose. They are a little bit different, I guess. One is an accident. 

I recorded a song the day I heard the news for him, a favorite from Daniel Johnston. You may have to download it to hear it. Since Google's platform won't let me upload an audio file to this service, I've used one of their other services to trick them into doing what I want. They'll probably put this post behind a warning wall, community standards being what they are. Where would we be without a community?

I don't have very much else to say. I am feeling disquieted. Thinking that if I did die in my sleep I wanted to say something first.  Can you believe that this was it. This was really it. 

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A Good Day To Lie

Fuck. I've had a very hard day at work. I made it difficult on myself; more than it needed to be. Have I mentioned how much I prefer leisure over labor? I must have said something about it, after all these long years. 

Two forlorn lovers....

Can we not, at least, be kind?

What's that from? Some long forgotten poem, maybe Keats. 

I think it went like this:

Can we, at long last, two forlorn lovers, at least be kind to one another?

But, I can't find any online matches. It was in a black book of poetry I have boxed away in storage, a couple purplish crushed petals staining two pages, the binding giving way so that the book must be handled carefully, not by a brute. 

Maybe I've completely misremembered it - perhaps it was in truly ancient English and not this middling period of the 19th century; maybe I've confused Keats and Yeats, who I believe was the nephew of a filthy Irish scrivener; who knows; the phrase was foreskinned lovers and at long last, and thick... ; even the concept of lovers was more of a primitive physical endearment than what we have access to now. 

I once read that what they loved to share most in the 19th century weren't memes but syphilis. 

What I adore about the persons of the past is how defenseless they all are/is. They just sit there and take it, those monsters. Few surer signs of guilt than silence. 

Keeps me writing. 

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I have insomnia, so I may as well write here for a little bit. I've tried everything else. I have ingested all the elixirs, huffed the pharmaceutical equivalent of nepenthe, awaited the gentle arrival of the shade, imbibed visions of the abyss and its surroundings. There is only nothing. 

Yes, I struggled at work today. I openly argued in front of... what should I call them? they're not superiors, but neither are they subordinates, they are only colleagues in so much that we work together.

Jesus, colleagues it is.

What the fuck am I even doing here? I promised myself that if I ever used the word colleagues un-ironically I would scrape my nutsack off, and all of its future contents, with a plain white plastic spork. I feel like colleagues is a word that James Taylor probably liked to use in the 70s, and people would take him seriously.

It is for this that I must self-immolate. I linger in this abyss. There is only nothing. 

Here we are, locked in this singular stalemate, looking down at both of them, unable to act, unsure which one to start with. Acts of self-barbarism are menacing. If I were a hero I would shave myself. 

Twenty-seven years of nothin' but failures and promises that I couldn't keep 

Oh Lord, I wasn't ready to go

I'm never ready to go

 

His rather enviable baseball hat (never thought I'd write that, either) is a cooly psychedelic reference to Daniel Johnston. If you love me then learn to play Johnston's song, True Love Will Find You In The End. Well, love yourself, and learn the song. It's only four  simple chords, but holds one of the strangest, and most oddly sincere melodies ever written.

Only listen to it once by anybody else, then learn and play the song from memory. Every time I go back and listen to the original, or any body else's version, I get further and further away from what I love about playing the song myself. That's the way it goes, sometimes, I guess. 

I have a toothache that seems to be moving into my jaw. I'd be okay with it if I died peacefully in my sleep tonight. I've come to terms with feeling the same about you.  

But, I can't find any online matches.

Funny phrase, that.

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Essay: what did you do over the summer?

Well, here we go again. I'll try not to write about death or being beaten as a child. My favorite subjects, it seems.

Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you. - Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon 

Though, I believe I may have left out the true-story telling portion. There is so much to tell, and as CS has pointed out, I can not safely hide behind anonymity. I have the alternate curse of identity. 

The pic above was a long open-shutter capture, taken while camping over the summer. We went many places, 3000 miles of driving, out to the deserts around Moab and back - Grand Canyon, Sequoia, Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce, Zion. We stopped twice in Henderson to visit with friends and enjoy air-conditioning and a swimming pool. 

We did a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon and hiked down into it for a couple hours, turning around at just the right point, when our water supply was at its halfway level. The boy thanked me afterwards for convincing him to turn around when we did. He had miscalculated the difficulty of hiking uphill. He desperately wanted to report to others that he had hiked all the way down, but it was out of the question.  

We also hiked the Narrows at Zion for several hours. This was a highlight of the trip for both of us. They had only just opened the slot canyon up for visitors a couple days before we arrived. The snowfall had been so great over the winter that the rapids were too strong to allow hikers. The last thirty minutes or so of the hike the only other human we saw was an unlicensed repeller who had come down the canyon wall and was trying to get his backpack to descend also, but he had no luck with it. It was still suspended there about a hundred feet up when we returned, but he was gone. Perhaps he tried to recover it from the topside.

Tioga Pass, which we had planned to take back home across the Sierras, was still closed from the heavy snow drifts. We skipped Yosemite, as it was July 4th weekend and was apparently too crowded to be pleasant. Instead, we drove home and surprised mom. She had never been away from the boy for two weeks before. You know how moms get.

I will be in NYC for about 3 weeks, beginning October 20th. I will be cat-sitting for a friend. A new neighborhood - Fort Greene - for me to discover. I know the Alamo and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, but that's about it. I've been to the park a few times, though I might be confusing it for Prospect Park. I may rent a bike while I am there. A real bike, not those Citi Bike monstrosities. Though, I suppose, in a pinch they might be useful, perhaps as a comedic getaway vehicle. 

I hope that Autumn is the actual season by the time I am there. You can never predict very much any more, and no true-story teller would keep that from you. 

The city is sinking. Well, the island of Manhattan is, I've read. It is the curse of the natives who once lived there. A hundred years passed between its first European visitors and its first settlement, four hundred more have lapsed since then. You can really tell when you look at the skyline. It reaches so high into the sky you might not notice that it's sinking.  

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Prejudicial Biases

I was looking through old posts here yesterday and came across this image. The boy had face-planted at school. I had to go get him. He was very upset when it happened, or so reported the school's nurse, but he had calmed down considerably by the time that I arrived. By the time we were home and I took this picture he had a very matter-of-fact attitude about the whole thing. I worry sometimes that the boy has grown up too quickly, always being around adults. There is the imaginary curse of being an only child. The data suggests that the past was flawed on its opinions of children who have no siblings. Apparently it's just as healthy as every other parental lifestyle choice.

Before I veer too far into the collective wisdom of science, and the data that supports it, let me just say that there have been times that I wish Rachel and I would have had another child. When I go to other people's houses, I like hearing them fight in other rooms and slam doors. I try to place bets on how long it will take the older brother to bring the younger to tears. Nobody, of course, likes me for this. But gambling isn't about being liked or loved, it's about the thrill of losing the bet.

Several of my closest friends had no siblings, or distant half-siblings whom they hardly knew, my mother had none, my partner and mother of my child has none, my son has none. This makes it possible for me to use my own experiences to draw the contours of my biases both for and against having a single child.

The boy and I talked about it quite a bit on our camping trip. He brought it up a few times. I let him speak, assuming he had stronger opinions on the matter than I. When I felt that he had adequately expressed himself on the desire to have a sibling, I explained why it had not happened yet - that his parents are imperfect - and that this also decreased the likelihood of it happening now, or at any time in the future. 

I tried to explain that adjusting to a sibling at his age - 11 - might be more difficult than he assumes. It's not like a close friend - of whom the boy has several that are also without siblings - that will eventually go home, and you can return to whatever relaxed state you most enjoy. Siblings can be pernicious, and even cruel. I remember things from growing up that terrorized me. I have some fears and anxieties that are deeply ingrained. My brother has apologized for these incidents several times, but they are powerful memories, not fond ones. There was regular violence in my childhood. It can distort a person. It's a tale as old as Genesis. 

The above image caught my eye yesterday when I was scrolling through old pages, trying to figure out the date that I gave up my apartment and moved back in with Rachel. Seems like it was the Summer of 2018. I miss the boy being very young, a little bit. There is something that perhaps parents feel more poignantly than others. I suppose it might be a simple as personal nostalgia, but it feels like more than just that, as if maybe nostalgia had a brother and sister.  

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Drum Kits and Death Marches

I'm back to playing around in my studio. Roland released a new drum kit for the modeling synth you see above (TR-8S). Well, the digital release of this older kit and its patterns is new. It is modeled on one of the oldest programmable drum synths ever made - the CR-78 (below). Made famous by Phill Collins on his track, In the Air Tonight, released the same year that the device was discontinued - '81. Collins moved on to using the TR-808, probably the most legendary drum machine ever released. Rivaled only by the TR-909, which he also used. Both of which are heavily featured in the drum synth that I have (above). Together - the 808 and 909 - form the basis of almost all dance music ever made. 

Collins was a great friend to the drum machine, a heavy promoter, adopter, and spokesman for their value, which almost seemed out of step with the times. There were many guitar players that questioned the value of "synthesis" and having machines do the work that was clearly meant for humans. I think Phil Collins is a bad joke, of course, but there was a time when he was highly respected as being the drummer for Genesis, Brian Eno occasionally, and for the rock goddess Robert Plant's first couple albums. Hall and Oates also used the CR-78 on their track, I Can't Go For That (No Can Do). So, it has attained its pop pedigree. Radiohead also use them in their live performances. So, I am excited and will be playing with my stupid little toy again for a while. 

A childhood friend died this week, heart attack. My age - 54. I try not to think of such things often. But you get the news and the ghosts await for late evening to launch their attacks. He lived on the golf course when we were kids, near a close friend who told me the news in a text. My memories of him have faded over the years, though I can still see his childhood face in my mind. 

I lost my virginity in a house only a few doors down from his. I remember walking home. My father was puttering in the garage and I thought that surely he could tell, that I must smell differently, or the wet spots on the front of my jeans would be noticeable. Or, perhaps the incredibly absurd smile on my face should have given it all away. 

I don't remember any details, a first-time blur, other than knowing that everything would be different now. By the next day we were having sex three or four times a day and it continued that way until she fucked a friend of mine, maybe six months later.I don't remember. I came over after school and there they were, guilty and visibly happy. Everything would be different, again. 

She became a topless dancer, I heard, and worked at the titty bar that was somewhat famous for how many truckers would frequent it. There was a mile or so of mostly empty roadside surrounding it, which allowed for the 18-wheelers to easily park. I remained friends with her brother for a while. We worked together mowing yards for many years. Mostly I worked for him if I needed cash. Then, I started my own landscaping operation, and did that through college. He seemed to enjoy the work more than me. Though I think back to it fondly now, from time to time. I tend to romanticize things. Life is a euphemism for something else.   

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My incurable itinerary

Am I at battle with misanthropy, I asked myself tonight. It is not a hatred of mankind, mostly only a desire to be left alone, a selective desire to be left alone. Perhaps I hate interference, the interferers. 

I have so few moments of peace any more. I am looking for a place to find some meditative place inside myself. I have never been very good at achieving or remaining quiet. I have little to say any more, but that is not the same as being quiet. Or, not necessarily so. 

I have booked my flights to NYC - a few weeks at the end of October and beginning of November. I will get to enjoy Autumn in the city that I love all over again. This time without the family. It will only be to visit with friends, read books, and work a bit during the day. The place I will be borrowing, cat sitting, and plant feeding is near Fort Greene. I also have rooms in Tribeca and Dumbo, if needed. Three weeks will go by very quickly. 

I read an essay about living in Brooklyn Heights in the 1950s tonight. It was by Capote. It encouraged me that my trip was the right one to take. My copy of In Cold Blood has gone missing. I am prepared to launch a journalistic investigation into the crime of its unexpected absence. 

When I return from New York I will turn around within a week and go to Texas for Thanksgiving with the family. This trip will give me time to ask for what it is I am grateful. 

I need some space - from whom, I'm not sure, maybe myself, my own thoughts here. I know that I love her, and much. I am also subject to something deeply felt that cautions me to be by myself from time to time, or just to get away, to be away. To feel differently from a distance, not only as a fixed, habitual, chronic response to the presence of another. 

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Monumentum Valee

Either CS is not a friend, or he does not ever want me to write here any more. 

He has summoned a Gorgon; I have no Hades' cap for protection.

I give up - fuck all of this - writing, being, living, dreaming, talking out loud. All of it. 

The reasons to write online should be obvious to everybody who can but doesn't.

That's no contradiction, it's just a simple contraction.

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Pluto

A real Omega Speedmaster is beyond my price range, the Swatch version seemed inevitable as soon as I discovered it. These were apparently only meant to be purchased at Swatch stores, of which there is one in San Francisco, though I am seeing them used online for a slightly increased price. So, the pixie dust of catholicon capitalism might have a half life that exceeds its grasp. 

Raquel and I went on a date night - we got a nice hotel room, went to a nice dinner, went to a nightclub and saw sophisticated acts perform live. We made love repeatedly. I took nude pictures of her in our hotel room. 

These are atypical times. We are trying things.

This morning she and I walked to the Swatch store. I decided on Pluto. It was the best of the four planets and one local star that were still available. Pluto is perhaps not one I would have chosen without having the other options removed as possibilities. I felt pleased at stepping outside of the otherwise predictable choices I often make. 

I am here now, writing this quick note, to remind myself what it is like to tell a little secret about my own life to unknown listeners. 

The weekend is gone. I return to that other weekly sense of time. 

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Canyonlands, USA

I stopped posting here because the community moderators at Google believed my most recent post to be immoderate and possibly in violation of their exceeding and exacting standards. Where would we all be without mores and morals? 

Fuck them, and that was my response, as you might have guessed. 

I'm back now, where hopefully more fuckery will be the unimpeded and uncircumcised result. 

Content scanners are notoriously coarse and unforgiving in their evaluations and determinations. I happen to know this as a byproduct of my own job, where content scanning is one of the most important aspects that help determine my personal success; likewise, failure. On a scale that I hesitate to relay, but it is in the magnitude of billions per month. 

With a b.

Ok, just a note. Now that I have cleared the honorable Q6 name, I might be back. It's good for me to spill my god-damned guts here every now and them.

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This orphaned mourning

After the ankle injury yesterday morning I received the news that my father's wife passed away in her sleep. This would be the boy's grandmother - Carla - and I believe my step-mother. Does that make her the boy's step-grandmother? I don't ever really know what people are talking about when they reference relatives. They may as well be speaking Italian. I know that you're not allowed to have sex with anybody that doesn't have a step- before their familial designation, and even then it is frowned upon by the other half, the ones that are not a step-anything. The ones that will hang you from the highest limbs of the family tree.

I also know that you're not supposed to beg for a blowjob from the bride on her wedding day. I know that now. In some cultures it is a way of showing honor, recognizing that she is prized for her many marital values and uses. How drunk I was does not seem to work as an explanation for this behavior, also. There are some acts that are not redeemed by abject drunkenness. Some honor others in their own way. That is the lived-truth of my identity.   

I'm not so sure that women have been universally treated very well throughout history. Though, if you really want to investigate how poorly people can be treated you should read up on what has happened to men. Sure, it mostly happened by other men but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Just try talking to almost anybody about the frequency of male-on-male rape. You may as well be advocating for the ideas of Heidegger. 

Where am I going with this cis-man ramble? This shuffling back-beat dance of privilege. 

Foxtrot, Tango, Waltz! 

Decrypted: fuck the world. 

Or, maybe: For The Win! 

The step-grandmother was of Mexican-American descent. Does that get us any family credits tallied up in the correct categories. She was Catholic, too. Also, probably a woman. 

All human suffering is the result of procreation. It is wanting babies that some women are finally becoming more Buddhist about. The birth control pill has been among the truest of enlightenments. 

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Or, any other metaphorical cliche

After coming home from the mountains concussed, I twisted my ankle this morning stepping on a tennis ball. The boy and I went to play a little light Saturday morning tennis at the local public courts and while chasing one ball I stepped on another. There was no joy in Mudville. Etc. I went down suddenly and without ease to the asphalt, curling up in a fetal position, unable to walk to the car without limping and complaining, barely able to drive home.

Don't worry, Saturday is not over. I could suffer much more before sunset. At least 23 fewer pounds stepped on the ball than would have a couple months ago. I have been trying to lose 10 pounds a month and have been successful until this month. I hit some sort of plateau on the way down to my idealized weight (~200 or below). What? I'm a stocky guy. 

There comes a time, and it will be soon, when the body won't recover from twisted ankles and knees any longer. My body feels stiff and brittle, much more likely to break than bend. CS reminds me that the end is most often getting nearer. I write this with a mixture of the humor that has sometimes saved people like he and I as well as the sad recognition of its truth. 

I have an ice-pack on the ankle but it refuses to sit correctly on the back, outer portion of the ankle that is in the most pain. I'm too lazy and unmotivated to get up and take something to reduce the inflammation. I am resigned to the fate of suffering, I suppose. 

I would go into more detail, though I do not wish to squander my suffering further today. I want to milk it instead. 

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Concussed

Sugarbowl

I might have a mild concussion. The symptoms align with a fall I had on Tuesday. It has been a while since I've had a fall where my head hit hard. It was in deep powder, even. I fell backwards and there was no powder to stop my head. It snapped backwards and hit what seemed to be the ground. It was probably just ice. But the shock was enough to cause me a few seconds of pulling myself together before I stood back up on the board. 

I don't do much photography when we snowboard. I try to do nothing but the thing itself. I have recorded hours of video footage with the camera you see on my helmet here. I never do anything with it. I barely ever even wear the camera. I might have the footage of me going down backwards. Who knows. Watching footage of yourself snowboarding is boring. I wonder why I have any of it at all. 

The boy's spring break is almost over. He spent it with his parents and their friends in Tahoe. I try not to feel down about such things. But there is something there to feel. I would wish him to be with his friends instead of adults. It must be difficult at times to believe that all of it is happening because of him - the vacations, the time together, the plans to provide experience, the effort to generate pleasant memories. It is impossible to say which of those things might be happening otherwise, or in that way. He still has little choice. He is along for the ride. In just a few years he will probably choose adventures all his own. Or, that is what parents tell themselves. Some kids never launch, they lack all curiosity about the greater world. 

  

Well, perhaps I do have a concussion - looking at this screen is making me feel as if I'm going to vomit. 

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Spring Break

Spring starts tomorrow for the boy, honored and celebrated by a week away from school. California is suffering Old Testament torrents and mudslides. But we have a few more snowboarding vacations left in us this season. They are digging the ski lifts out of the snow as I write this. The roads are washed out, I'm told, between here and Heavenly. This will be a first for us in South Lake Tahoe. I really hope we fit in.

I'm charging every battery I own. I'll have something to do for a while other than obsess about my new home studio. Today I added a real analog synthesizer, a monophonic 64 step-sequencing jewel - Manther. Don't worry, I bought mine used. One of the founders of this synth company was a member of Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Acid Horse, and co-produced many of Ministry's albums under the name Hermes Pan. Half of the Luxa/Pan production duo. He started by playing bass on the Twitch tour. If you used to scour mysterious underground albums like I did then you'll recognize the moniker. He's an industrial legend. Paul Barker is his actual name. 

But he's not why I bought the machine. I bought it for the CEM3340 based VCO IC, and the SSM2044 - boutique analog circuit and filter chip. I won't bore you with the history, but those chips were used in some of the most legendary synths ever built (Roland, Moog, Sequential Prophet, Oberheim, etc). Recently the original manufacturer (Curtis Industries) started manufacturing them again. That, combined with the advances in digital and modular technology, pushed me over the analog edge. A self-respecting producer can rely on samples and digital models only so long. 

My new studio is approximately a week old now.

I don't miss being on social media. Strange, that. What was the appeal if it has no pull on me now? I have so much more time, so little left. 

I just heard Bob Dylan sing about how he would trade lives with any of the young people he sees. 

It went like this:

I see people in the park, forgettin' their troubles and woes

They're drinkin' and dancin', wearin' bright colored clothes

All the young men with the young women lookin' so good

Well I'd trade places with any of 'em in a minute if I could

I'm crossin' the street to get away from a mangy dog

Talkin' to myself in a monologue

 

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Everything, now

There was a small but significant success at work today. Something that I, and more importantly the teams that I work with, have been working towards since I have been in my current role. It will be noted as a "Win" in the monthly report. The first for this project in what will necessarily become a much larger series of wins.

Then, there was bad news elsewhere - the pendulous swing from contentedness to the other. The beautiful cyclonic food chain of life. 

What a strange age to be, this one. I used to invite further strangeness, often knowing where others' comfort level and sense of humor would permit them to go. Not always, though. People surprise me. 

Now they mostly surprise me only if they can grab my doddering attention. I am probably already audibly farting at times without knowing. I should find a mall, if they still exist, go in and wander aimlessly, give the teens an occasional reason to laugh aloud, a little joie de vivre.  

How do you say ass water in French? 

L'eau du cul

I've been looking up phrases on Google Translate. I know it's a horrible thing to do when reading - to look something up online. But it makes me feel more alive, connected, savable and it gives my nightly reading an air of academic credibility that it might otherwise lack. 

Ok, life is too strange and stressful here for me to be coherent; a day of ups and downs; we are too on the eve of the eve.  

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Watch your bass bins

I said a clever phrase to Raquel this morning and meant to use it as a title here. My ability to commit details to memory wanders unfaithfully. I remember being clever, then thinking of my future self here writing, wanting to give myself a chuckle. 

Also, the boy's birthday was months ago. I must have forgotten. 

We were just buying R a birthday gift, a day which she shares with St. Patty, and I asked the boy when her birthday and mine are. He was close.

I will instead write today concerning what I think I came in here for looking for.

I need to learn to stop deriving pleasure from buying new or used audio gear. I have spent a fair amount of money recently. Some would say too much. Though, I do have a functional studio now, one that combines a modest selection between the old and the new, the analog and the digital, the virtual and the actual. I can do all of the things that I like to do, both within and outside of the computer, which has returned to being the central device in almost everything. I attempted to reconstruct a studio environment using only hardware sequencers, with no "computers" as most people know them to be. Almost every electronic instrument is a computer of sorts. There is no reasonable escape from them if you wish to do anything with music beyond playing an acoustic instrument. Even those tend to rely on electronic tuners. 

The newest problem is this: my MPC3000 will need to go back to the repair guy in Oakland to get some more work done. I'm not able to effectively use it because two of the most important keys are giving out on the front panel. More money must be spent. While it's there I will bring several other devices to be looked at. The other important unit being the Tascam 4-track tape recorder that CS sent back to me. I am getting high hopes for what it might be able to do if it proves to be functional or even salvageable. 

I have listened to a tremendous amount of electronic music in the last forty years or so, and one thing that stands out almost more than any other quality about it is its warmth or lack of same. I'm convinced that a significant portion of that mysterious and mercurial quality is achieved by traditional means - using analog devices (synths, filters, effects) and recording onto (or through) analog tape. The Four Ts: tubes, transistors, transformers, tape. There should be as many of those as possible in every signal chain. Even a signal that begins digitally seems improved by being passed through a device with analog components. 

Well, most of the time it does. Some gear just sounds broken. I seek out more of that as I get older also - an old man tinkering in a broken workshop, cobbling together decades of broken devices.

Most people, I am certain, would choose an amateur digital recording over an amateur analog one every time if asked which one sounded better, and they wouldn't be wrong. But amplify that same recording and listen to it next to a good recording done with analog gear and you hear something over time that is, to me, surprising and pleasant: your ears don't get fatigued at the analog sound quite as quickly. This happens without amplification also, it's just not nearly as noticeable. But if you pay close attention to how you and others respond to sounds then you start to gain an affinity for certain kinds. 

Here is an example of the recording sound I hope to be able to emulate (ignore the era and of course the "visuals"). It sounds like they might have also used a hardware sequencer, at least with the arpeggiated riff that comes in at 2:07, and in the general mute/unmute feel of the arrangement - dubby German techno. 

That's my music recording and listening lesson for the day. I spent two decades doing hard drugs in various nightclub's bass bins to develop and gather first-hand evidence to support this elaborate yet incomplete theory. 

GoFundMe, etc.

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Sitting near the feet

I will try not to write about my experiences putting together a personal studio. Though, today I had the first of what I would consider a success: I made a drum loop that I liked working with and listening to. I played it for Raquel, she liked it also. There is still so much to learn, or relearn. I have to remind myself often that the best things I ever did in the studio were not the result of the times I worked the hardest, but rather the opposite. You can only learn so much, eventually you must do the thing you're trying to do. Nothing more, try to have fun doing it.

I will try not to write any more about it. It is all that is on my mind, though, because I don't quite understand why I'm doing it all. After many years an interest rekindled. Life is odd, death is certain.

The boy and I decided not to go to Tahoe, which was for the best. They have closed down several resorts there avalanche warnings, too much snow, temperatures above freezing in the daytime, then more snow. It is a bad combination in sequence. 

We arrive next Thursday night, and it will be snowing even more between now and then. I don't know how to think or what to feel about the risks. This new fear is all a mystery. I will face it stupidly, with the bliss of ignorance. I don't want to die but I do like to snowboard. Maybe I won't have to choose. Life is jawed, death is curtains.

Where the needle goes the thread follows; artha, kama, dharma, moksha. The natural way to live, the continuing entanglement of the passions. Live the Upanishads, death's a burden. Where the needle goes. 

You become what you believe, when there is time. 

I set my heart on the work, but seek rewards. 

The clear path to a lesser goal has becomes the obstacle.

Nothing is written. 

Nothing is riven.

 

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Borrow joy; hide misery

CS tells me that I can be happy if I just make more money. That is, unless there is some underlying cause for my unhappiness that is not monetarily related. The research which he relayed to me this morning does not guarantee results over $500k a year, so this correlation is approximately half the happiness the FDIC insures, but perhaps in time new evidence will suggest an even better return on my investments into happiness. 

I have splurged recently on buying used studio gear. It's like camera gear, it becomes a stupid obsession and before long you own items that are redundant, particularly if you happen to like a certain era or production or type of effect. Apparently I am just in love with rack-mount digital effects and analog filters. 

This is why I need that 4-track Tascam cassette recorder that CS sent to me - to help hide some of those digital artifacts. I have high hopes for it, but I know what it arriving here will mean for me - time, money, and effort. Everything has a learning curve. I told myself that things would "come back to me," but I forgot that I was a drug addict when I learned how to use these machines.  

There are four items on their way to me now, and I have been opening boxes for two weeks as they arrive. I have filled the entire studio rack I purchased and now I must adhere to the 1-in/1-out principle. There is no more space available. I guess I'll only make room for the most expensive stuff now. I suppose I could have another rack just for the guitar effects, but that is shameful thinking. I'm just making excuses for having over-spent, purchasing things that are not all that useful to me. Though it sure felt good to press the purchase button on a few of them.

I made a credit card payment this morning. Usually when I do this I pay it all the way off, but that was not an option. 

My friend, Z, told me this morning that she does not believe any of us were ever addicts. She emphasized this about me in particular. She wants me to attend one of our friend's 50th birthday party in NYC in June where that will be one of the primary focuses. So, this oddly fact-free narrative of hers was motivated at least in part by that. I pointed out that we have all been partying somewhat continuously since the late 80s/early 90s. 

She made a pretty good point: not me. 

What is the word for people who still do hard drugs in their 40s and 50s, and then presumably into their 60s and beyond? Is there a word for it? Those that have learned to cleverly "manage their intake." They all have great jobs, and families, and yet. William Burroughs wrote a book about one form of that behavior. 

Ok, it is a day off from work for me, and I must get to it. I had hoped to keep the boy out of school and go snowboarding but the storms have closed all of the resorts. There are avalanche warnings. Imagine such a thing. Tons and tons of snow sliding down a mountain at speeds that no snowboarder could possibly hope to achieve to escape it. Some of them travel at over 200 miles per hour. Even small ones can get up to 100 mph within just seconds of when they start. Everything in nature can become a horror of sudden death. 

Happy Friday! 

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Because it is

Akai MPC3000LE

Setting up a studio is expensive work. What the fuck was I thinking? I barely have any time to myself as it is. Why did I reignite an old hobby, a yawning money pit. CS sent me the old 4-track Tascam 464 cassette recorder, which was very nice of him, though that unit looks like one more that I'll probably need to get repaired. 

I discovered two failing buttons on my MPC300LE today. I had noticed that neither of them was as responsive as they should be, but I kept telling myself not to worry too much about it. Now that I know the machine will need to be repaired I'll need to go through every button and verify that they all work. The parts and repair will be expensive. The machines go for about $5k, used. I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it, but all these holdups keep me from doing with the machine what I hope to do. This is starting to feel a little bit too much like work. Losing this unit will simplify my life a little bit, for a little while, though. 

I may need to remind myself from time to time that I made a fair amount of music without an MPC3000 at all. I have another sampler that is just as powerful (Akai S3000XL), though without an on-board sequencer. In fact, I only completed a few tracks with an MPC, but in my mind it has become the indispensable unit for electronic music. It is.

Side note about this machine: Questlove, the drummer for The Roots, is making a documentary about a producer - J Dilla - who was considered the preeminent genius bar none on this machine, sometimes referred to as the "Jimi Hendrix of samplers." He used this machine almost exclusively. His 3000LE is currently in the Smithsonian, where it belongs. I'm sure I've written all of this before. 

Today I hunted down buzzes in the mixing board and found at least one brand new cable that was bad and had to be thrown out. This doesn't sound like much, but these things all eat up your time, and that eats up your chances of being creative. Eventually you find all the little quirks and problems and you fix them or you find workarounds for them. Each problem seems to compound the last and the next. Or, you find yourself eaten by them. 

I know that I am just talking out loud to myself at this point. I stopped writing for an audience some time ago. I've mostly left social media, and only check Instagram because I like photography. I couldn't tell you if Donald Trump has legal problems or not. When I was more "connected" with the news I wanted him in prison. That's what keeping up with events will do to you.  

I'd like to say I live more in peace now, but if you remember the first two easily forgettable paragraphs from this post you'll understand that I very much don't. I used to just lie in bed and play the acoustic guitar and read. Now, I have purchases to regret, time wasted, worries out there waiting for me in the future, lurking in the elongated shadows of morning. 

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Analogue Bubblebath

A big part of the "problem" with electronic music is also one of its biggest charms: it does not sound human. It's too perfect, the resolution is too high, it lacks the "warmth" of analog recording techniques. The things that make it unique are what some people don't seem to enjoy. Electronic producers, some of them, go to great lengths to give their recordings the analog "feel" and warmth that is a natural byproduct of traditional analog recording. 

There are extremely expensive analog processors that can help add warmth to a recording without any loss of fidelity. In fact, these processors add fidelity and warmth, but they are prohibitively expensive - $20k-$30k and up. The less expensive and more imperfect way to give electronic recordings warmth is to track them to analog tape, though you can lose the strict timing that is the trademark of electronically constructed rhythm, and you are of course losing some fidelity and resolution. 

It sounds absurd, that a producer would willingly degrade the resolution and timing of their recordings to make something sound older. Many audio experts agree the differences are mostly imaginary, and the perceived superiority of analog recording is one of those lies aging people tell themselves about the world having been a better place when they were younger. If you grew up listening to analog music you can probably recognize the sound of an analog recording when played comparatively or as a contrast with a digital recording. Why? Because it doesn't sound quite as clean and clear, or loud and mixed as well. Yet why does almost everyone who can detect the difference prefer the older analog track?

I've never heard anybody provide an adequate explanation that doesn't devolve into a version of: old people are stupid and they stop growing.

Perhaps, but I believe there's more. I'm trying to get CS to mail me back another gift I gave him years ago. Though, in fairness, he loves having it, I think. It's a cool artifact. Though... he has stored it in an attic in Florida; subjected it to hurricanes; it's probably not sealed; rodents and raccoons have expired in close proximity to it; he drinks heavily; roams the house in dirty underwear, etc. It is difficult to know what has become of the little tape recorder that could. 

I have promised to send him something far more useful in return. I'm still heroically inclined. Maybe he needs a a pre-amp for boosting mic inputs.

The anachronistic in question....

Trashcan Portastudio 464:

These devices are of interest to people like me precisely because they sound worse than what I can do any on given day in my current studio. But they convert certain frequencies in difficult to describe ways that make electronic music sometimes sound better. They do very little/nothing for most applications when compared to a laptop. Any computer made recording will sound better than it would recorded with tape. 

Well, unless you know how to achieve that rare lofi special magic that is in large part the location of the recording, part performance, part production skills, and at least some part luck and dogged repetition. 

Why am I writing all of this? Because I've re-assembled a (mostly) digital recording studio and I am trying to explore and discover ways to make what I do sound less perfect. Almost anybody can make electronic music now. They have programs that can let you choose a key and a modality and it will prevent you from ever playing a "wrong" note. Whichever note you play on the keyboard, the computer will simply adjust it to one that is closest to being in key with the track you've chosen to make. They can even randomize notes and quantize timings to give your keyboard playing more character than it might have otherwise. There are programs that will automatically adjust every sample in your track to the key and time that you're working in. The result: there is a tremendous amount of nearly identical, very boring, homogenous electronic music out there. 

Well, it is easier to make a boring track than it is to make a good one. I've done both. 

Why go back and do something that I did in my 20s and 30s, you possibly ask? I don't know. I miss it, I guess. I miss having a reason to interact with some of my older friends. I became a father, got a job, then got a good job, raised a son, ushered him to an age where he is starting to develop his own interests which are independent of mine and even of me. 

Don't fret, it's not all over, we're going snowboarding, just he and I, this weekend, if the weather invites it. We're still grand buddies with the imagination that suits our respective ages.

Though, there are interests that remain dormant, but you hear the conversations with yourself when you listen to certain music. Produce instead of consuming. 

It seems ameliorative to pursue something of which I am capable, something I can enjoy entirely by myself. All trepidation leaving the body, inhibitions being forgotten, the anguish of lost years being forgiven.

No, I am wanting to end with an exaggeration of conclusion. It is late and I am tired, and the world awaits me sooner each morning now that I've been staying up later. Time passes with unforgiving shifts in regularity, just like the liquid language of music. 

Talking about music is like prancing about acupuncture...

mostly digital; analog filters, mixer

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