50 things

Got this from Jender's blog, playing along...

 

1. Do you like blue cheese? no

2. Have you ever smoked heroin? not as far as I know

3. Do you own a gun? no, but I have a boomstick
4. What flavor do you add to your drink at sonic? no sonic 'round these parts
5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? yes
6. What do you think of hot dogs? I think I would like one right now, Sabrettes with a lotta mustard
7. Favorite Christmas movie? Bad Santa.  I haven't seen it but I like the idea of it
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? hot tea
9. Can you do push-ups? not unless I have to
10. Age? see #9
11. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? wedding ring
12. Favorite hobby? reading comic books
13. Favorite Actor? Gene Kelly
14. Do you have A.D.D.? yes
15. What's one trait you hate about yourself? procrastination
16. Middle name? Christopher
17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment? that's a lot of rain, I have an itch on my forehead, ah that feels better
18. Name 3 things you bought yesterday/today: italian sub, beer, turkey sub
19. Name three drinks you regularly drink? hot tea, water, Miller Lite
20. Current worries? how to get out of my day job
21. Current hate right now? see #20
22. Favorite place to be? snoozing in bed with Mack and GoGo
23. How did you bring in the New Year? playing a set in SL
24. Where would you like to go? UK
25. Name three people who will complete this. I don't know three people
26. Do you own slippers? please, I live in south florida, down here we do flip flops
27. What shirt are you wearing? the blue one
28. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? gimme cotton
29. Can you whistle? a little
30. Favorite color? green
31. Would you be a pirate? can I be a ninja instead?
32. What songs do you sing in the shower? I usually think about things like quantum physics when I am in the shower, I only sing when there's money involved
33. Favorite girl's name? dunno
34. Favorite boy's name? this one too, no real favorites
35. What is in your pocket right now? iPhone
36. Last thing that made you laugh? Tycho's blog
37. Best bed sheets as a child? Batman sheets
38. Worst injury you've ever had? tore my ACL fighting with our old drummer
39. Do you love where you live? totally
40. How many TVs do you have in your house? 3, but only watch one of them
41. Who is your loudest friend? my friends are quiet and demure
42. How many dogs do you have? no dogs, 4 cats
43. Does someone have a crush on you? I have a crush on myself
44. What is your favorite book(s)? at the moment, Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow.  Of all time, Lonesome Dove
45. Where were you born? Red Bank NJ
46. What is your favorite candy? chocolate covered pretzels
47. Favorite Sports Team? Miami Dolphins
48. What song(s) do you want played at your funeral? anything by the Pistols is fine
49. What were you doing at 12AM? writing a new song
50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? oh crap, already?

Paying at the pump

Taken yesterday. Ouch.

why John Mayer makes me yawn

If anyone reading this likes John Mayer, good on you.  The nice thing about opinions is we all have some. 

 

John Mayer is a caracature of a cliche of a copy of something that was cool when it was old black men doing it.  I'll give the guys like Clapton and Richards a break, because when they got into blues they had to really dig to find the records, it was an underground thing.  In 2008, pretty white boys playing the blues is about as cutting edge as a noodle.  The blues is what noobs play when they are learning the guitar.  It's what old men play when they have no teeth left.  It's the Gerber baby food of guitar music.  The blues is music that was made by hard men who lived hard lives, not Berklee School of Music dropouts.

 

I actually googled him because I wanted to validate my feeling that he was just a rich kid who wanted to play the guitar when he saw the Karate Kid playing it in Crossroads.  I was wrong though, he was an upper middle class kid who wanted to play the guitar when he saw Marty McFly playing it in Back To The Future.  So what do I know?

free comic book day may 3rd

This Saturday May 3rd is Free Comic Book Day.  This is an annual event that started back when the first Spider Man movie came out, this year it's being timed with the release of the new Iron Man flick.  The idea is simple, comic book stores are giving out free comics to anyone who comes in, no strings attached. 

 

The comic book business is kind of insular.  Distribution is dominated by one company, and for the most part comics are only available for on the street purchase at specialty shops (which is why you never see the spinner racks at newsstands and drug stores anymore).  Margins are brutally thin, it takes a special kind of fanatic to own a comic book store. 

 

Free Comic Book Day is a way to get to new people who might not normally stop by a comic shop.  The average person would be very surprised to see the breadth of material available in comics, it's not all spandex suits and talking animals.  Horror, crime, sci fi, romance, adventure, drama- anything you might find at your local Borders you will find in a comic shop. 

 

Go to this link to find the store nearest to your house-

 

http://freecomicbookday.com/fcbd_locator.asp

 

- then get a bunch of kids, yours or other people's, and on your way back from seeing Iron Man on Saturday, stop by and load up on a stack of free comics.  Tell 'em Uncle Case sent ya.

 

wave this

"I firmly believe that, you know, if there was a magic wand to wave, I'd
be waving it, of course. To your question on the Saudis, look, I have
made the case that, you know, the high price of oil injures economies.
But I think we better understand that there's not a lot of excess
capacity in this world right now."

GWB 4/29/08

"What I think the president ought to do is get on the phone with the
OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots. One reason why
the price is so high is because the price of crude oil has been driven
up. OPEC has gotten its supply act together and it's driving the
price, like it did in the past. And the president must jawbone OPEC
members to lower the price."

GWB 1/26/00

rocking in the real world

In two days we are going to play our first show in the 'real' world in
almost a year. I hate to use that word, because playing shows in Second
Life is pretty darn real. In any case, it's the kind of performing that
involves moving amplifiers around, driving distances, and otherwsie
leaving the cozy confines of Superhero Studios.

It will be fun to play standing up and prowling a stage again. It will
also be fun to play at chest-thumping volumes. We have a good headphone
mix when we gig in SL, but it's not the same as a pair of 4x12 cabinets
pushing massive amounts of air. The actual setup looks pretty sweet,
nicer than probably 90% of any of the bars I have played at over the
years. My pal Rob has promised me nothing less than an awesome sound on
the stage, which will be great. I can count on both hands the number of
times, out of literally thousands of gigs, that we had a good monitor
mix (or even monitors!).

I'm very much looking forward to hearing Rob's band, and to jamming
together after everyone's set. It's been more than 10 years since we
have played together, should be tremendous drunken fun. Another
unexpected treat will be one of our best friends in Second Life making
the trip to catch the show. Crossing over, this will be a first for us,
very exciting. We've known a few RL friends and acquaintances that have
tested the SL waters, but not the other way around yet.

There will likely be audio and pics from the show. No promises if
they'll ever see the light of day, but if there's anything that doesn't
make me too scundered*, I'll post.

*scundered © Ravishing Rosi Vinson

unexpected gift

Played our brains out again this weekend, 6 shows between Friday night and Sunday night, more than 6 hours on the mic, the voice was shot by the end. One more thing I love about playing in Second Life is we can play as much as is physically possible.

Our Sunday night shows at Echo Echo are a lot of fun, there's always a great bunch there, but the real treat for us is teaming up every week with our pal DJ Jocelyn Sands. She told me the theme last night was going to be cover songs and SL homegrown music, and did I have any recordings of Friendly Fire doing any covers? It was slim pickings, but I managed to fiind a bad cut of us doing "Suffragette City", and a better track of us doing "A Wee Deoch-an-Doris" an old Scottish drinking song by Sir Harry Lauder.

I spot checked the beginnings and endings of the files before sending to Jocelyn. What I forgot about was that at the end of "Wee Deoch-an-Doris" we were fooling around and did a fake barroom thing with clanking bottles and hooting and hollering in the background. Included in that montage was our old dog Harley barking. We had to put Harley down last November, just before Thanksgiving, one of the hardest days of my life. I did not expect to hear him barking on that track, hit me right between the eyes and I choked up. I went in to warn the Missus about it, so when we heard it later we'd be prepared for it. Didn't matter, we cried like little kids. It was good though, so great to hear him, and you can hear in his bark the fun he was having. I am really happy we have that recording. I sure miss the big goof.

status report

It's been a hard decision and took a lot of soul searching, but the fact is that original music is just an endless uphill battle. To that end, we're gonna bail the originals and move to a top-40 cover format, Phil Collins and stuff.

Erm, what day is it again today? Sorry, I couldn't stop myself.

The punchline to the last post is I re-worked the guitar sound a couple more times, and actually got to the point that I've been so pleased with it I've been playing the strat non-stop.

Non-stop pretty accurately describes the gig schedule, we did 15 shows in SL last week alone. It still makes me laugh, what a cool thing. Plug an IP address and password into the broadcasting software, click connect, and we're pumping live audio from our living room to folks around the world. In my previous life working for the web hosting company, I was a semi-frequent guest on a syndicated technology radio show that the guy broadcast from his house, and he needed a wall full of gear and dual ISDN lines. I shouldn't be surprised, I've got a phone in my pocket with more computing power and bandwidth than my first 4 PC's combined.

We did a show for Mediaset, which is a huge TV network in Italy, and they filmed the performance for a video. It came out really nice-

http://www.youtube.com/mediasetsecondlife

We've got a song on a compilation album called Dancing In The Combat Zone, coming out in the early summer. The album features South Florida bands doing anti-war stuff, we were glad to be asked to participate. There's going to be a release party it looks like on June 28th, and we will be doing a RL performance at Churchill's Pub in Miami. It will be the first one in over a year. Actually, that won't be completely accurate, we're going to do a RL performance at a secret location in Central Florida the end of April, kind of a jam fest with a friend of mine and his band. It'll give us a chance to see how well (or not) it works live with the programmed drum tracks. If it falls completely flat, we'll have time to get a live drummer for the Churchill's thing. If it *does* work, well, that would be cool wouldn't it?

the question that can't be answered

Overheard very late last night-

Me: You know, I don't know why I keep fighting it, I should just admit that I am a Gibson man and quit struggling with the Fender guitars, I've played humbucker guitars since forever, why do I keep resisting it?

The Missus: Oh my god, I can't believe we're having this conversation, yet again.

back in action

Boy did it feel good to get back in Second Life last night. Two weeks to the day since we last played, seemed more like six months. I can't wait to see my cell phone bill, I bet I logged an easy 30 hours talking to support (read- sitting on hold). It was great to see all our friends, and to get back to the Glamshack too, I missed the heck out of the club. Looks like I will need to make a few repairs, it's a rowdy bunch that hangs out there.

At the day job, coasting on a few hours sleep and a slight hangover. Ah, it's good to be back.

2 penny reviews

Movies we've watched while offline-

Superbad- not as funny as I hoped it would be
Idiocracy- uncomfortably spot on in places, more satire than comedy
Pirates 3- well, it looked good anyway
Planet Terror- awesomely awesome
Death Proof- see above
Shoot 'Em Up- midway through the missus said "this is so stupid!" yes it is, baby, yes it is. recommended.
Talk To Me- very funny and solid for the first 3/4, but it kind of fell apart in the last reel
3:10 To Yuma- best western in years, excellent
Blade Runner: Directors Cut- I didn't like the Donnie Darko director's cut either, gimme the original
30 Days Of Night- the comic was better, and scarier too
Spy Kids 3: Game Over- a satisfying end to the SK trilogy, not as good as the first two but still a lot of fun

too dumb to quit

After much hairpulling, chest beating, and gnashing of teeth, I have been promised progress today. I've heard that before, but this time it had the ring of truth. We're certainly due for a spot of luck. Boy I yelled the hell out of Earthlink last night. I personally don't like yelling at people, and I hate being put in a spot of having to yell at people.

I looked forward to the 2 hour season finale of the Terminator show last night, and then the second hour got dumped in lieu of the channel seven news at 10 (I guess they didn't get the memo). That was the point that my head exploded and I went to bed.

Day 12 offline, btw.

in hell

I spent enough time on hold with Earthlink this week to qualify for
benefits. After 5 hours on the phone yesterday I finally got to
someone who would talk straight, and he admitted that it was a screwed
up deal for sure, and that nothing would happen until at least
Monday. So we are SOL for the second weekend in a row. We're furious
about it, but cable or satellite isn't an option. We'll have a lot of
new material when we get back in SL next week (he wrote
optimistically)...

Sent from my iPhone, deep in the heart of Cardiac City...

holding pattern

Still offline, I'm told DSL service should be restored sometime today, fingers crossed. Remind me how we lived without the internet again?

offline

Catastrophic phone outage at home, been down since Friday and may not
be back operational until Wednesday. Brutally frustrating. Updates
as I am able...

Sent from my iPhone, deep in the heart of Cardiac City...

my best music story

You play in bands for some 25 years, you pick up a few good stories.

I played with a rockabilly band for awhile. We had a good run by band standards, I think maybe 2 years, and we worked constantly. Nice bars, crummy bars, theaters, cruise ships, fairs, receptions, it was the most I had worked in a band to that point. This was when swing bands were all the rage, back in the late 90's. It's not bragging to say we were one of the top rockabilly bands in town, and as such we opened for a lot of the regional and national acts that came through town. I had nothing to do with any of this, the singer booked all the shows.

One day he calls me and says we're going to open for Air Supply at a big festival. Cool! Hey, I'm not a huge fan, but whatever, they were a big name. It's important to mention here that the singer and I had problems with directions- he couldn't give 'em, and I can't follow them. More than a few times I was late to the gig because of a screw up with directions, and I was determined to not have that happen this time. He told me "take the turnpike and you'll see the sign for the exit, just follow the sign." What could be easier?

I had my gear ready and we left hours early, anticipating it would take roughly an hour to get to the fairground. Plenty o' time. We're tooling along, me and the missus, happily chatting. I don't see the sign, must be a little farther. 15, 20 minutes later, still no sign, that's odd. Next thing I know, we're down in Miami at the end of the turnpike, dumped off onto US 1. This can't be right. I get someone on my cell phone, sure enough, we missed the exit. Now we have to haul ass back up the turnpike. My nice time cushion is evaporated, but it looks like we should have just enough time to get there. I am a bit worked up by this time, so the missus takes the wheel and I try and calm down.

It takes forever to get back up the turnpike, but we finally find the exit, and we're headed in the right direction, on pace to make it with seconds to spare. I decide to save a little time, I will jump in the back seat to tune up my guitars. Just one small problem-

no guitars.

I left them home. They were right by the front door, and in the rush to get out of the house I somehow forgot my guitars. We are 10 minutes away from our biggest show, and I have no guitar. I turn into Rain Man at this point, mumbling "no guitar, I have no guitar, no guitar..." over and over, like somehow a guitar is going to appear.

We skid into the parking lot, gravel flying, and the band rushes over to the truck to grab the gear. I tell them I don't have a guitar; there was murder in their eyes. Our drummer pointed over to the Air Supply bus and said "Well that guy has a whole bunch of guitars, you better go get one!" We run over there, I ask the guy at the gate "which one is the guitar player?" and he pointed out a bench with a cool looking fellow sitting with an attractive woman, eating some barbeque. I go over to him and say "This is going to sound really stupid, but I am in the opening act and forgot my guitar, and I was wondering if there was any way I could use yours?" He sized me up for what felt like an hour, and finally said "sure mate, go ahead."

So we ran up to the stage, the roadies had already set up my amp and were having a good laugh at the chump who forgot his guitar. I went to the guitar tech and said that the Air Supply guy said I could use his guitar. He said "like hell he did!" We're now in a tug of war over a telecaster, and the announcer is headed to the mic to announce our band. I tore the guitar away, ran to my amp and plugged it in, hoping to god it was in tune, just as the guy said "Ladies and gentlemen, the Retro Rockets!"

It was in tune, we got through the gig with no problems, although I was pretty rattled, not my best performance for sure. The guys were furious at me, and we never did get any other work through that talent agency. Still, after that, I can get through anything.

things of interest to no one but me

Saw Van Halen this week, great fun. My ears are still ringing. They definitely got it done, just so much better with DLR. Plus there was a big brawl in front of us at the end of the show, felt like old times.

Comics scribe and intarwub overlord Warren Ellis launches the free webcomic Freak Angels today- http://www.freakangels.com.

Go read it, and tell me what you thought.

Dolphins release my favorite player on the team, Zach Thomas. He's been banged up, he's a little long in the tooth, but man, did they have to release him? He's probably signing with the Patriots as I write this.

I guess the writers strike is over. Yawn. Heroes won't be back until the fall, for some horrific reason the Terminator show is on the bubble of being renewed (it's a great show). Looking forward to the Office coming back I suppose, although it seemed a little off this past season. Other than that I really don't care, have so little time for television. As long as I manage to catch Countdown a couple times a week, I am happy.

Speaking of Countdown, Olbermann was on fire last night with a new special comment. Yow.

I think we have 6 shows in the next 48 hours. Hardest working band in SecondLife.

Going to the Renaissance Festival on Sunday for the missus' birthday. We love the ren fest and try and get there a couple times every season, they are here through February. I was disappointed last year that they didn't have the deep fried turkey legs, they had smoked turkey legs that were a very poor substitute.

I made up for the turkey leg miscue by demolishing several yards of Smithwick's ale and about a pount of kettle corn. I plan on more of the same this year.

always find the silver lining

I was thinking about it, and even though the local sports teams are brutal, just bottom of the barrel, the one bright spot is we have a superstar, arguably one of the most recognized figures in all of sports, a worldwide celebrity, right here in our backyard. Whataminute, say what? Traded to Phoenix?!?

real progress

Down here in Cardiac City, our big supermarket chain is Publix. We have others, but Publix is the one we go to. For a couple of years there when grocery shopping online looked like the next big thing, they had Publix Direct, that was awesome. You'd go online, check off a bunch of stuff, and then two days later they'd bring large quantities of meat and beer RIGHT TO THE HOUSE.

But I digress.

One of the things that's great about Publix is their deli. They have a sub that for my money is one of the best in town. The bread is fresh from the bakery, it's a beautiful thing. Couple times a month I like to go over and pick up an Italian sub, I get the half and it does me just right. Ham, salami, capicola, provolone cheese, some lettuce, oil, vinegar, and toss a little oregano on there too please.

The other day I went there for a lunchtime sub. Usually when you get the half sub, they take the foot long roll and cut it in half, makes sense, right? LO and BEHOLD! They've now got half sized rolls, in addition to the foot long rolls. The significance here is huge. With the cut in half version of the rolls, there was a certain inconsistancy. You'd watch the counter person pick a roll, you might be thinking "go for the one on the left, no, the other one" or even worse, they grab an already cut roll from a previous sub. I dunno, I guess we're talking minor variations, but when you are as anal as I am, it adds up. Now, with the new and improved rolls, you get a complete sub experience from the first bite to the last. Even better, if you are like me and you like the crunchy bits on the end, you now get two heels with every sub! Fantastic.

So the next time someone complains to you about lack of progress in the world, you tell them "sure the economy is in the tank, sure rational thought is moving backwards, sure we're stuck in a cycle of war and divisive politics, but have you seen what they're doing at the Publix deli these days?"

Well done Publix, well done.

Perfectville

What a game. It's hard to describe the investment we have in the Miami Dolphins and the 1972 Perfect Season. I was six for crying out loud, and all I knew about Dolphins back then was re-runs of Flipper.

It can be frustrating living down here, because most everyone is from someplace else. What's maddening is this- these are people who left their friends, their family, they left their jobs, neighborhoods, churches, they said goodbye to all of that to move to South Florida. But, do they root for the home team? No! We go to all the Dolphin home games, and week in and week out here they come, wearing the moth eaten Bills jerseys, the Jets jerseys, Cowboys, Eagles, Pats, you name it. We've been getting chased out of our own stadium for what feels like the last three or four years. Brutal.

I wasn't innocent mind you. Ironically enough, when I moved down here I was a Patriots fan. Growing up in the Northeast, you had arguably 4-5 'local' teams: Giants, Jets, Eagles, Bills, Pats, Steelers all within a several hour drive. I liked the Pats because their logo reminded me of Captain America. They really sucked back then, seemed like every year Steve Grogan was starting at QB.

After a few years living in Florida, I decided that it was stupid to keep carrying that torch. If I wanted to be part of the community, I had to root for the home team. I threw a party, no one knew what for, and at the end of it I led everyone out to the parking lot. I swore allegiance to the Dolphins, and set my Pats t-shirt on fire while parading around it singing the Dolphins fight song. Overly dramatic? Maybe. Okay, yes.

Ever since I have bled aqua and orange. Probably not concidentally, it wasn't long after that Shula and Marino were gone, and the Fins went into their tailspin. Nevertheless, I have never wavered.

So yeah, it feels really good to hold on to the Perfect Season crown. Stupid to have so much wrapped up in a game played by millionaires, but I don't care. Perfectville: population one, established 1972.

cotta bene

My favorite restaurant is a place called Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza. I first read about them a couple of years ago, but the original location was a roughly 40 minute drive. They opened a place that was much closer in September 06, and we've been getting there once or twice a month ever since. The menu is small- pizza, chicken wings, salad, a couple of other things that don't matter. Pizza, wings and the big salad is why you want to go there. When we do the hat trick of all three I call it shooting the moon.

Normally I don't have a big appetite, but when we go to Anthony's I eat until it's coming out of my ears. This drives the missus nuts, which is another plus.

In case you missed it by the name, everything is cooked in a big coal oven. Their motto is "our pizza is well done", which means it's gonna be black and crispy in places. This is a Good Thing. It's not like any pizza you've ever had. It will spoil you for regular pizza. It's the best pie in town. It's pricier than the typical pizza dinner, but it's so worth it. The chicken wings are to die for. Or kill, depending on who's trying to snag the last one.

The newest location opened yesterday according to the rumor mill. It's about 5 minutes north of my office.

I'm thinking pepperoni pizza for lunch.

carpe diem

Got word today that a friend of mine isn't doing too good. He's been fighting liver cancer, and the fight is almost over. Young guy, mid 30's, worked for me back in the day when I was director of network operations for a mid-level ISP. Great sense of humor, I sent him out on the road for many a crummy assignment, never complained.

I don't know how it is for you guys, I have a day job that I hate. I took it to help get over a dry patch when I was freelance copywriting, woosh it's almost 5 years later. How does that happen? It's been a productive time personally, we launched Friendly Fire, and it's been a cushy enough gig that my brian is mostly free to focus on other things. Lately though it's become a real drag, I am working too hard, thinking too hard, waiting for the weekend.

Life's too short to keep waiting for the weekend. If that's you too, then let's fix it, this year. I'm looking at five months. Who's with me?

electric slide

I'm driving to work this morning, running a few minutes late so I decided to take 95. Tooling along, typical Monday morning traffic, busy but not quite bumper to bumper. There's a slow down ahead of me, so I toe the brake.

The car shuts down. Totally dead, the electrical system flatlined.

I am in the middle of the interstate, traffic flying on eather side, and I am dead in the water. I couldn't even flash the hazard lights. Panic. Waiting to get plowed. Commence freaking. I keep trying the ignition but it's not even ticking. After about 2 minutes (it seemed like an hour) I decided to call 911 and get a cop out there to run interference. Just as it's ringing, the car comes to life, the dash lights up like the DeLorean in Back To The Future. I tun the engine over and it grabs, and I jam it into gear and floor it.

Then my cell phone rings, the caller ID was blocked, but it had to have been 911 calling me back. Of course I missed the call when I tried to pick it up. Made it to work without further incident, although I am waiting for the police to show up any minute to ask me what the fuss was all about. Guess I'll be getting a new battery for my stupid car. Welcome back from vacation indeed.

why it's fun to play in Second Life, reason #73

Last night, mid set, everyone gets a notice that the sim is restarting in 5 minutes. Third time that's happened at this particular gig, so we said we were going down with the ship, Titanic style. Played a few more songs, 5 minutes dragged out to 10, then it finally says going down in 60 seconds. Two griefers had shown up by this point and were pummelling me and Mackenzie with a baseball bat and machine gun as we played. The remaining audience rushed the stage to protect us. Total chaos. Ran out of song so I start going off in a guitar noodle that I figured needed to last about 30 seconds. 2 minutes later I am still wanking, totally out of ideas, the damn thing wouldn't crash. I ended up taking off my headphones and going over to my amp for an extended feedback session, finally resorting to morse code feedback SOS using the pickup switch, banging on the guitar with my fist, and screaming at the Lindens into my bridge pickup.

Felt pretty punk rock about the whole thing.

and each time we thought "this is the one!"

This is the name of every band that I have played with, in chronological order, as best as I can remember right now. I did about 6 months in a chick lead singer cover band between The Abusers and CIA, but all we ever did was rehearse and I can't remember the name of the band. The singer chick was kind of cute. Can't remember her name either. There were a couple of country outfits mixed in there too in the early 90's, but who the hell can remember anything about the early 90's?

Aftershock
Fallen Angel
The Squidz
Out To Lunch
The Dare
Industrial Doob of the 80's
Headhunter
Palladin
The Detroit Rockabillys
Straitjacket
Red October
Jolly Roger
Mills Lane
Finest Kind
Noggin Vox
The Forsakers
The Splattercats
The Abusers
Joint Effort
Catholic Irish Alcoholics
The Retro Rockets
The Informers
Friendly Fire

typical conversation with the new kitty

"Aw, who's a cute little kitty, such a sweet girlie, ow OW OW NOT IN THE FACE NOT IN THE FACE!"

I'm the other one

Couple times a year I get e-mail from this guy's brother Hugh-

http://www.caseycook.ca/

I never get anything intended for her though-

http://www.caseycook.net/

There's also this fellow, doctoral candidate in choral conducting of all things-

http://www.caseycook.org/

Other notable Casey Cooks include a collegiate basketball star and a bluegrass guitar player. It amuses me that I irritate all of them by having the domain caseycook.com. I should redo my site and dedicate it to goatse imagery.

my resolution this year is 1024 x 768

Make commitment to feed the blog, check.

Dope out remote posting via e-mail, check.

Have something interesting to say, .....er....um...ah...

the hills are alive

A post on Ajay's blog (It's All About The Walls, link to the right) got me thinking about music. I've been playing the guitar for closing in on 30 years, and have spent more than 2/3 of that time kicking around the music business. Objectivity is long gone. I've pretty much lost the ability to listen to music just for enjoyment, I can't help but break it down the way a career football coach can't just watch a game for the fun of it. I honestly don't have time to listen to any music other than my own. For a few years there the only time I listened to any CDs was driving to and from the gig. I'm a musician who doesn't listen to very much music, go figure.

My feelings about music are so colored by slugging it out in bands since I was a teenager. We opened up one time for a terrific rockabilly outfit called "The Hillbilly Hellcats" and they have a song called "I Hate Music (it ruined my life)", ain't that the truth. I tried to quit a bunch of times. I actually went two or three years without even looking at a guitar. The two bitterest disappointments of my life have been bands that could have broken through but imploded. The first time I swore I'd never believe in rock and roll again. The second time, I *really* meant it.

And yet.

Despite the baggage, despite being jaded by two decades of let downs, despite it all, it still works. The right song at the right moment and the years fall away. And that's as a listener. Being able to MAKE the music, well, it's what I am best at. I'm not the best at it, not even in the neighborhood, but it's what I do better than anything. There's nothing that can compare to being in the zone, singing and playing with every ounce of whatever it is that makes me me, crawling into the note and wringing everything there is from it. Just nothing like it. It's better than sex, because frankly, anyone can get laid, but not everyone can make the rock.

So yeah, it ruined my life. I turned my back on money to live the life of a broke musician. I'd do it all over again, every single time.

full facial

How odd was bearded Letterman last night? Has anyone in the history of US television ever hosted a late night talk show in full beard?

ready, set, go!

No more wabbit season/duck season arguments, after 4 years of foreplay, it's officially Presidential Election season! Today roughly 6% of eligible Iowa voters will more or less determine our next president. Welcome to representative democracy gang! Sure, your vote may not count when it comes to picking the next leader of the free world, but fear not, it counts on American Idol and the new season is just over a week away! Maybe the answer is to have the candidates sing badly to crap pop songs instead of, you know, talking about the myriad problems facing us thanks to 8 years of the Commander in Chimp and Darth Cheney.

If at first you don't succeed...

I was teasing my pal Ajay the other day that she needed to update her blog, and she pointed out that mine had over a years worth of dust. Ouch, nice one. Okay, here we go. Since I have no problem blasting out nonsense e-mail to people, it should be a simple thing to feed this blog, yes?

So it's welcome to 2008. If the way 2007 ended is any indicator, it's going to be quite a year. The band has gotten insanely crazy, it's amazing. Who knew what Second Life would turn into? Such a humbling thing.

Anyway, this is a test post to see if it works via e-mail. I have to go into a meeting in 9 minutes. Day job is such a buzz kill. Note to self: see what you can do about this day job problem.

Three weeks since my last post- that's dedication! Okay, I admit it, I'm not a die hard blogger. Nevertheless, here we are, the morning of my surgery. I'm a little over an hour from checking it at the hospital, and there's still a lot to do so this'll be brief, but I wanted to get something up. The physical therapy has gone well, it's almost a shame to screw my knee all up again. But, it doesn't feel right, and it doesn't feel like it's going to get better unless I do this. Yesterday they sent over a continuous passive motion machine and a water-cooled knee brace thing. I tried them out last night as a test run, weird but okay. Here we go, off to the races.

In my couple of days of research on this thing, I've found that some of the best resources in terms of the "what to expect" department have been personal diaries of folks experiences with a torn ACL and the recovery process. To that end, I thought I'd keep up my own journal, both as a way to possibly help out other folks down the road, as well as in support of my own relentless egotism. So on with the show!

The accident-
5-27-06
"How'd it happen?" How indeed. I've offered a lot of variations on this question over the last couple of weeks, mostly because it's both a little embarassing and with a level head could have probably been avoided. Here's the clinical version- on Saturday May 27th, following a show with my band, I got in a scuffle with our now former drummer. We were clinched up hockey style and wrestling around when my left knee gave out and I went down; predictable considering he had a good 60 pounds and 4 inches on me. It gave out again about 20 minutes later while I was carrying out our equipment, and I knew something was really wrong. The next day I was in serious pain. It hadn't swollen much, but it was impossible to bend, and the slightest weight had me barking out in pain. The good news was it was Sunday on a holiday weekend, and as it turned out I wasn't able to get to a see a doctor until Wednesday.

The early prognosis-
5-31-06
I got in to see the orthopedist early on Wednesday the 31st. The first bit of good news was my insurance would cover a lot of the treatment. The bad news was that since I hadn't even touched the $1,000 deductable on my policy, I was looking at some solid out of pocket. Great. After dealing on the paperwork, it was a short wait in the exam room and the doc came in to check me out. After a cursory exam he wanted to see an x-ray, so they took me down the hall and draped on the lead coat for a couple of snaps of the knee, from the front and side. 20 minutes later me and the doc were looking at the x-rays. He said that he didn't see any broken bones or anything which was good, although there was a lot of fluid buildup which indicated something was wrong. I would have to get an MRI to see what was going on. I got a prescription for vicodin and a set of crutches.

Luckily I was able to come back in the next day for the MRI. That took about an hour in all, it was an interesting process. I was a little dismayed when I was laid back on the table, leg locked in place. "Okay, now don't move for 50 minutes." Of course, I felt like I had to move immediately. I got over that, and half dozed through the rest of it.

It was a full week before I had a follow up appointment to go over the results of the MRI. I was a little concerned about the long timeframe, (hey, where's the urgency here, this is my knee!) but as I later learned, it didn't really make a difference in terms of the treatment. After two days I decided I hated the vicodin, it made me logy and nauseated. A few days after that I decided that I hated the crutches, but they came in handy for long distances. With my newly broken knee, the definition of 'long distance' now includes the walk across an average parking lot.

The real prognosis-

6-8-06
So a week later, I sat down with my doctor to go over the MRI. He had a nifty little knee model that helped as he talked me through the report. The knee model lost it's charm quickly when I heard the words I had been dreading- "you've torn the ACL." That wasn't all though, I also had a partial tear of the meniscus, which is the cartiledge between the tibia and fibula. I had three options for treatment, none of which I liked. I could go for straight rehab, which runs the chance of ongoing problems down the road as well as early arthritis. Option 2- they could take a section of the patella tendon (the one that holds the kneecap in place) and use that to rebuild the ACL, but the downside to that is a more painful recovery. Option 3- they could use a tendon from a donor (read cadaver) and use that for the reconstruction. Creep out factor notwithstanding, this was the recommended treatment, and after much tossing and turning over it, I decided to go that route. My main concern is to get back to as full a range of flexiblity as I can, as soon as I can. After I was done meeting with the doc, I sat for a minute with the woman who does the surgery scheduling. She took down my information and gave me hers, and I told her I would call to set up a date for the surgery after talking it over with the wife.

Physical Therapy
6-15
Went in for my first physical therapy appointment today. After 30 minutes of phone calls to verify my insurance, I met with the therapist. He walked me through a range of stretching and lifting exercises, most of them weren't bad but a couple hurt like mad, especially trying to pull my leg back for a thigh stretch. Ow. When that was done, he stuck some electrodes from a TENS unit around my knee and wrapped it in icebags for 15 minutes. The voltage from the TENS was kicking pretty good, and I had to raise and lower the bottom part of my leg to work the knee. This part was excruciating, and for the first time I had a vision of what post-surgery is going to be like. I almost tossed my cookies right there, but I got myself under control. I made myself ill the day before too, reading up on ACL surgery and recovery. As Kris told me, in my case a little information is really dangerous. I'll be doing PT three times a week until my surgery, scheduled for July 7th. We've got gigs scheduled for the 15th and 16th which may be massively overreaching, but I am reluctant to cancel unless there's no other option. My next followup with the doctor is next week, unless there's a real development I won't update this diary until then.

Wow, a lot has happened since the last post. Andy called me the day after my walkout from gainful employment, and asked if rather than have me just build him a site, let's go in full partners on the online store. That's right boys and girls, I am now a comic book dealer. Here, the first one's free, now don't tell your parents. Tremendous. I'm extremely excited, no one's really cracked the code yet on online comic sales, a few come close, but there's money to be made. This gives me a short term target, that I can leverage into both income and future design services. Not to mention that should the site go the way we want it to, that could be a full time gig right there. I paid a bunch of bills this morning, including paying off the Dolphins season tix for next season. This gives me a solid year before having to worry about paying for them again :) The reality of money going out and not coming in is starting to take hold, but it's realistically going to take at minimum a month to get the site launched and start realizing sales, so I just need to stay focused, head down, work. It feel really good to be building something for my own future,and not someone elses. For everything else that I am worried and will continue to worry about, I know without question that I made the right move quitting that soul sucking job.

So I quit my job yesterday. I didn't plan on it, but there you go. It was a train I saw coming a long way out, but it picked up speed fast the last two weeks. I was on a six month exit strategy anyway, I've known for awhile that I needed to make a change, but I guess I didn't have six months left in the hourglass. So here I am, Johnny Freelancer. I'm up, I'm home, I'm at my computer writing, is this what it feels like? Probably a lot like this, but hopefully with money included at some point. Some soon point.

Gameplan, gameplan, who's got the gameplan? Short term- refresh a couple of web sites I've built, finish the online comic store for my pal Andy, and finally learn Adobe GoLive, let's see if I can't scrounge some work building sites. Make calls, pull in some favors. Network, egad. The days of fat and sassy are gone for now I fear, but I dunno, this it the craziest thing I could have done, so I feel pretty good about it. If nothing else, when this blog turns into the diary of my descent into moral and fiscal bankruptcy and soul wrenching madness, it should make a good book.

Jan. 10, 2003 | MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) --

Eight spiders from Australia will make a trip to outer space to help America's space agency test the effects of zero gravity.

A total of 30 Golden Orb spiders bred at the Melbourne Zoo left for Cape Canaveral in Florida state Thursday packed in a cooler, said zoo keeper Patrick Honan said. Only eight — deemed the most frisky after the long flight — will board a space shuttle Jan. 16 for a 16-day orbit.

Honan said the tiny spiders — which are not poisonous — are ideal candidates for the experiment because they create perfectly symmetrical webs, making any changes easily identifiable.

It's not the first time arachnids have been sent into space.

In 1973, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration sent Arabella, an American common cross spider, into orbit on the Skylab space station.

Posted to Matt Fraction's Forum

Maybe the only thing I've studied harder than comics or my navel has been the history of rock and roll, as a recovering musician rock's been the monkey on my back for 20+ years. It's interesting to me to track cycles in music as compared to comic books, pop culture second cousins that, like other forms of media to varying degrees, reflect the mood and movements of their time periods.

To continue down this road for a sec, the periods in music that have gotten me the most excited have been what I think of as the garage band eras. You could arguably go back further, but for the sake of this argument let's say the Golden Age of Garage Bands started when Sam Phillips started recording white boys singing black blues in the early 50's. Over the next decade rock gets watered down and polished up. Bring on the Hamburg hardened Beatles, and in their wake thousands of kids started thrashing on Sears Silvertone guitars and amps in actual garages (!), giving us the Silver Age of Garage Bands, which faded into psychedelia once everyone got stoned. Fast forward another decade give or take, and punk rock starts to fester in New York and then London, and pop music takes an adrenaline needle in the chest, which, in shorter order now since our attention span has diminished, limps into new wave and is choked out by vast amounts of hairspray and spandex. The circle of diminishing returns in full swing, before long disenfranchised kids are getting pissed off in flannel, and it's Garage Mach IV (has it really been almost 13 years since "Nevermind' came out?). The slew of imitators shows up on schedule, the point is forgotten, and just when you thought we'd be mired in boy bands forever, the The bands (Hives, Vines, White Stripes, Strokes et al) show up to kick everyone in the balls. Each of these eras is typified by kids fed up with the status quo of the old guard, with THEIR OWN THING TO SAY (the important part), just going out and doing it, damn the torpedoes.

This is what I love about the idea of Garage Comics. It's not the implication of lack of skill or polish, it doesn't have to be raw or sloppy to be garage (it doesn't necessarily hurt, because the means justify the ends ultimately), but it has to have the fuck your monkey passion and 110% committment to the idea, statement, story, message, whatever the thing is you're trying to get across, that's Garage baby. Just like Strummer, I've been back in the garage with my bullshit detector, and I can smell let's pretend like my dog can smell a fresh chewy cat turd in the litter box. Some guys want to be rock stars, and some guys have a song they need to sing or their heart will rip out of their chest in agony and desperation. As the widescreen dust settles and the last of the THX enhanced 'splosions fade into the distance, the time seems exactly right for Garage Comics. If history is any guide, they're coming anyway.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Reuters) -- Eighty pilot whales have died after stranding themselves on a beach on a southern New Zealand island, a wildlife official said on Wednesday.

Conservation workers and residents are trying to save survivors of a pod of 159 pilot whales that swam ashore on Stewart Island, about 30 km (20 miles) south of the South Island, Department of Conservation spokesman Tom O'Connor said.

"They're pretty distressed...there's no wind and swell to splash on them so they're not in good order," he said.

An attempt will be made to refloat the whales, which look like dolphins and grow up to five metres (16 feet) long and weigh as much as three tonnes, at the next high tide.

New Zealand has one of the world's highest rates of whale strandings, which are thought to occur when the animals become disoriented or when a dominant animal leads others ashore.

But the strandings are not clearly understood by scientists who believe illness or other types of trauma might also play a role.

Pre-war story idea--

Undercover War Begins as US Forces Enter Iraq

by John Donnelly in Washington and Tom Allard in Canberra


About 100 United States special forces personnel and more than 50 CIA officers have been inside Iraq for at least four months, looking for missile-launchers, monitoring oil fields, marking minefields and helping their pilots target air-defence systems.

The operations, which are said to have included some Australian, Jordanian and British commandos, are seen as part of the opening phase of a war, intelligence officials and military analysts say.

This is despite the Bush Administration agreeing to the schedule of United Nations weapons inspections.

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Defence, Robert Hill, rejected the suggestion that Australians - even individual soldiers attached to US or British commando units - had been involved in covert incursions. "Australians haven't been operating in Iraq," she said.

Australia is believed to have a policy of not sending special forces on covert operations into hostile countries, but the spokeswoman described this as hypothetical.

Okay, this is me working the blog from the can, using my PDA for something other than Solitare. The handwriting tool isn't too bad actually. The keyboard isn't a huge improvement. I'll stick to the character recognizer deal. Took about 5 min to write this. Alert the press.

Here's a new idea, let's add a blog to the site. Sigh. Well, all the other kids are doing it, so why not. So happy Friday, bring on the weekend. Random thoughts-

My neck hurts. We were sparring at karate last night, I took a left to the head and heard it crack. It's not bad, but it's sore.

Project status-

Haven't done jack on the comic book beyond think about it a lot. My brain stew is starting to ferment now, it's going to be time to push again. Things are clicking into place, storytelling craft, elements of theme, pacing. Fuck, I just want to write comics with cool shit blowing up, but as in all things worth doing, there are Rules to be learned before they can be broken. If we push, we will go to print on the next issue by the end of October. www.cookbroscomics.com

We're getting the band back together. Well, sorta. There's music coming though, I can hear it. Guy we played with briefly in a band called the Abusers, Taggert Reid, is moving back to town next week. We hooked up at Dave's last month for an informal jam, kick the dust off the amps kind of get together, and it was pretty good. I don't usually like playing with other guitarists, but I get along stylistically well with Taggert. He's got the right punk rock sensibilities, and he's a good player besides. We're going to take a stab at some original music, I have already written most of one song and am well along on another. Last time I tried this the well was dry, but things are flowing now. Or should I say, for now.

The Informers remain in semi seclusion, we will be breaking it out for a gig in December for a big street party. Playing in The Informers is as easy as falling off a log, stripped down, no rehearsals, rip through a couple sets of classics and pound beers all the while. We can't scratch the punk rock itch so much in The Informers, but we can bloody hold our own against any meat and potato band.