Monthly Archives: June 2007

Mike

Once upon a time in Rochester, NY, in 1991 or thereabouts, there was a young man with a 4-track recorder, a guitar, a drum machine and a bass borrowed from the guy across the street. And one winter's day this young man cobbled-together a weak-ass little funky song without words or title. It used the FUNK1 program on the drum machine, but other than that, it had no soul and no reason to exist. But there it was, nonetheless, on that cassette inside the VistaFire 4-track recorder. And there was a track left over, unused.

That night, the young man and his six roommates journeyed down the road to an unassuming place called The Salty Dog, where they drank Genny 12-Horse and ate scores of chicken wings: three different kinds, including a batch of garlic-parmesan wings that were surprisingly good. They drank a lot. Their uproarious laughter filled the bar. In time, they left the bar and went back to the apartment, for it was late, and they were full, and out of cash. It was probably a Tuesday.

Shortly afterwards, back home, the young man and the other young man he shared the basement with were in the basement, eating potato chips (because they were young and they were drunk, they forgot they were so very full minutes ago). And then the young man saw the 4-track recorder, cued to the start of the song from earlier that day. Inspiration struck! He put on the headphones, pressed record, picked up the microphone and started, dear reader, to sing, drukenly. Though he had no ability and no right to be doing so, he could not resist - the muse could not be denied, you see.

First, he sang the customer guarantee from the back of the Wegmans potato chip bag, embellishing a bit where it needed more oomph. Then he sang about the young man he shared the basement with, Mike, the future-dentist, who was sitting on the stairs, not sure what was happening. Mike, who could not then hear, and had never before heard, the music, was puzzled, insulted and probably a little ashamed at what he was witnessing; and yet he was amused.

Then the young man sang of the rest of the roommates, Steve, Doug, Audrey, and the rest. Then he dropped the mic and lost his train of thought. With thirty seconds left to go in the song, the young man did what any reasonable man would do in his situation; he obeyed the muse! Dear reader, he picked up that microphone and started to sing again! He sang, in that shaky shaky voice of his, not of guarantees or his too-numerous roommates, instead, he sang of good things! He sang the delicious potato chip and buttermilk pork chop recipe from the back of the potato chip bag! Inspired, and yet barely comprehensible in its brilliance. And then he finished it off with a kiss. Mike sighed at the pathetic spectacle and sarcastically chided the young man, "Now that's a rap!".

But, Mike's derision could not erase what had just happened; the weak little song that should never have been born became the Smaller Animals classic, Mike. And here on this web page, I present it to you so that you can hear what true inspiration sounds like.

The young man has not drunk Genny 12-horse since.

Here's some spackle

M.I.C.

Thoreau writes:

    After defeating the industrial might of Germany and Japan and Italy we were told that we must continue to send billions to defense contractors and remain on a wartime footing to defeat an economic system that could barely grow enough food. Eventually, that economic system collapsed, and we applauded ourselves for the collapse of somebody else's unworkable system. Now, we are told that we must spend even more, remain on a permanent wartime footing, and surrender even more liberty at home to defeat some guys armed with boxcutters.

If you're not cynical, you're not paying attention. The MIC, she's got us by the nads.

30 Second Reviews

  • Battles - Mirrored. It's prog, with nods to King Crimson, but with a modern post-rock feel and no wanky soloing; it's like Tortoise but aggressive. Vocals are scarce, mostly wordless, often used instrumentally, Bjork-like; sometimes they sound like the singer from Oxford Collapse, but warped.
    ∅∅∅ Three nulls.

  • Cowboy Junkies - At The End of Paths Taken. Another collection of intimate, low-key songs. There are male vocals on a few of these songs, which is unusual - the credits don't really say who it is, but I'm going to guess it's Michael Timmins (the guitar player). It's a pretty solid Junkies record.
    ∅∅∅ Three nulls.

  • Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation (reissue). It's been remastered, so everything is bright and shiny - all the vocals and guitars are up-front and crisp. I heard guitar things I'd never heard before (even though I've listened to the original record a million times); some of the vocals are so much cleaner they almost sound like different takes. It also comes with something like 19 demos, live versions and covers - including a cover of Mudhoney's Touch Me I'm Sick that almost measures up to fieldfresh's version. Almost. They're playing the entire album live, tonight, at the Pitchfork music fest. And then Slint's playing all of Spiderland. And I'm not going to see either because I'm not in Chicago.
    ∅∅∅∅∅ Five nulls.

  • Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare. A bit louder and heavier than their last one. The first few songs kindof run together for me, and then they do some other things, and then there are a few more songs that sound like the first five. I much prefer their previous record.
    ∅∅ Two nulls.

  • Desert Sessions - Vols 9, 10. Sometimes it's Alice in Chains, sometimes it's Soundgarden, sometimes it's classic PJ Harvey, sometimes QotSA, sometimes EoDM, sometimes Babes In Toyland. Many different things going on there. Someone in there can play some damn fast guitar fills (I'm Here For Your Daughter).
    ∅∅∅ Three nulls.

  • Oxford Collapse - A Good Ground. I haven't explored this one much yet, because whenever I want to hear these guys I always reach for Remember The Night Parties. But, there are definitely some hooks in there ex., The Boys Go Home, and the Feeliesesque Cracks In The Causeway. The singer's strange off-key yelping will probably turn a lot of people off, but I like it. Enthusiasm sometimes outweighs adherence to standard technique.
    ∅∅∅ Three nulls.

X Marks The Dementia

Behold, the dumbest brain surgeon in the world, as he argues that altruism cannot be located in your brain because your altruism doesn't change if you move your head. No, really.

Read for yourself. Read it twice, because you won't believe you just read what you read, the first time through:

    But how does moving your brain change your altruism? Do properties of altruism, like benevolence, have pitch, yaw or roll? Is generosity measurably and reproducibly different when you (and your brain) are on the north, rather than the south, side of the room? Are you measurably more or less charitable if you tilt your head 30 degrees to the left? If you walk around the room does your altruism change in a reproducible way? If you stand up, is your altruism different that when you're sitting?

    For altruism to be located in the brain, changes in altruism must map, in some reproducible way, to changes in brain location. But it's obvious that no property of altruism maps to brain location. If no property of altruism maps to brain location, then altruism is independent of brain location, and it's nonsense to say that altruism is located in the brain. Altruism is completely independent of location, so it can't be located in the brain, or anywhere. It can't be 'located' at all.

Interesting. So I guess the music coming from my iPod must exist outside the iPod itself since it doesn't change if I move my iPod to the other side of my desk... ?

But wait, what about this: Obviously, the sound of the music from a passing car changes as it drives past a stationary observer. So, obviously again, the music must exist inside the car and we experience its movement past us. And yet, to the driver of the car, the music doesn't change at all as the car moves. So, by the brain surgeon's logic above, the music must exist outside the car. A paradox? No, this is probably just an example of some kind of special musical relativity... Eureka! So, therefore, I will postulate that as a car approaches the speed of light, the music should get heavier and heavier! What starts out as Air Supply in a stopped car changes to the Eagles, then to Spoon as the car accelerates; and if the the speed increases still, it will change to the Queens of The Stone Age, Black Sabbath, then Metallica, Minor Threat, and finally to the Japanese spazzmetal band, Boris, at which point the car will have become so massive that it begins to act like a black hole. And then we all die. Or maybe not.

Either way, you'd think that, as a brain surgeon, he'd know how the brain responds to acts of charity.

Bah. This guy should see a neurologist, I think he's lost his fucking mind.

Sentence Of The Day

David Byrne wins, today:

    At breakfast my mother was eating off one of my commemorative plates — and she apologized quietly to the Queen Mum for putting bread on her face.

The rest of the article is pretty interesting, too.

Kubby's Pledge

Libertarian candidate, Steve Kubby, signs a pledge:

  1. No Military Commissions Except on the Battlefield. I will not employ military commissions to prosecute offenses against the laws of war except in places where active hostilities are ongoing and a battlefield tribunal is necessary to obtain fresh testimony and to prevent local anarchy or chaos.
  2. No Evidence Extracted by Torture or Coercion. I will not permit the use of evidence obtained by torture or coercion to be admissible in a military commission or other tribunal.
  3. No Detaining Citizens as Unlawful Enemy Combatants. I will not detain any American citizen as an unlawful enemy combatant. Citizens accused of terrorism-linked crimes will be prosecuted in federal civilian courts.

There are ten points in total. And all of them are exactly what I wish the Dems would stand up for. *sigh*

Most of the rest of his statements on "The Issues" look good, too:

Civil Liberties

  • Repeal the Patriot Act
  • Repeal the Military Commissions Act
  • Enforce the Bill of Rights
  • End government discrimination based on sexual orientation

Energy & Environment

  • Require government and military fleets to go non-petroleum
  • End taxpayer subsidies to the petroleum and agriculture industries

Wait, what? What does he think military vehicles will run on? Is he thinking... nuclear-powered HumVees? Solar-powered F-16s?

Foreign Policy & Iraq

  • Immediate, unconditional withdrawal from Iraq
  • Return to America's traditional non-interventionist foreign policy

Fine.

Guns

  • No new "gun control" legislation
  • Repeal of all existing "gun control" legislation
  • Forbid and prosecute violations of gun rights by government

Ehh... I dunno. I like a little gun control.

Immigration

  • Open immigration for all peaceful people

Fine.

Taxes & Spending

  • Veto any and all tax increases, new taxes, and unbalanced budgets -- period.
  • Work to cut spending, splitting resulting surpluses between tax cuts and debt service.
  • Work to eliminate the federal income tax.
  • Until the income tax is eliminated, seek annual across-the-board tax cuts through increases to the personal exemption.

Ah... that's where the Libertarians always lose me. I just don't understand their fear of the income tax.

The War on Drugs

  • End it!

Yeah baby.

So, I like 80% of what he says. But until today, I'd never heard of him. The two big parties maintain a pretty tight duopoly on politics. I only found him because of an ad running on Unqualified Offerings, and I wanted to see what the Libertarian position on global warming was, assuming it'd be amusing. It wasn't really as goofy as I thought; his plan is to get rid of government subsidies for oil companies and agriculture (which make gas too cheap and food too expensive) and make biofuels an economically-attractive option. Not bad, in a grand kind of way, I guess. But I suspect it'd be a nightmare in between the time gas prices hit the roof and the time an affordable replacement fuel became available. And I doubt Congress could be coaxed into any of it (or any of his positions).

Oh well. Sometimes it's fun to cruise around the exotic car lot and think about what it'd be like to own one of those impractical little rocket roadsters. A little daydreaming is good for the soul.

The Enterprise Webinar Solution

Scraps hates webinar. Me too. It's an ugly word.

I'm also fed up with "solution", which has become a buzzword for "really expensive set of programs for your business". It's all the rage in software circles these days. We don't make programs or applications, we make Solutions.

Calling something a "solution" presumes that it solves an identified problem. But when you get right down to it, what it really solves is some marketing person's idea of what the average potential customer needs - a problem an actual customer might not actually have. Sure, that's how all off-the-shelf products are produced, nothing new in that. And once it's produced, the salespeople have to convince customers that they have the problem our Solution fixes, even if they don't - which is how all salespeople work, I suppose. But, to me, it feels crass and presumptuous to declare, before identifying the problem the customer really faces, that you have the Solution ready to sell. It's condescending.

I guess this is why I'm an engineer and not a salesman. I'm no good at talking people into believing that my hammer is the right Solution to all their hand tool needs and then walking away, cash in hand, smirking. I much prefer finding out what they need done then crafting a Solution that actually fits their situation.

Fuck, I'm bored.