perpetual night and the increasing oddness of my bus rides

i'm in chicago.  in case you didn't know this, chicago lies directly on the easternmost edge of the CST time zone.  

this isn't a problem at all during the summer, but after the fall equinox and daylight savings time sets in, dusk falls around 4:30 every day.  now, if i were a morning person, this would be lovely.  i'd wake up at 6 am, enjoy the sunshine for three hours before i have to go to work, and be a happy, vitamin d satisfied human being.

however, this is not the current situation.  i frequently wake up past 9am (i don't work until 10am at either of my internships) and go to sleep around 2am.  also, i work in a building where i have access to one window three days a week and no windows two days a week.  so i've been living like a bat for a week now.

artist's interpretation

i wish i was batman.  how sweet would that be?  i mean, even if i just had his utility belt, i would go places in life.  namely, places requiring grappling hooks or vials of acid for entry.  bruce wayne had it all right.  it's like a swiss army knife that keeps your pants up.  and was made by Dr Emmett Brown.  if you have some time, you should look at this wiki page, it's intense:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman's_utility_belt#Contents

so, the title i gave this entry alludes to odd bus rides.  i should probably talk about that.  my recent experiences on the CTA buses have been nothing short of outstanding.  here is a list of some scenes i've witnessed on the #50 CTA bus:

• methheads tweaking, of course
• a cross-eyed girl with corrective tinted glasses playing ukulele
• a bum who talked to ukulele girl about jack benny, how jack benny was the greatest violin player of all time, how jack benny wasn't racist at all, and listed several other entertainers from the 40s and 50s that were and weren't racist in his honest opinion
• a bum playing harmonica
• a guy in a slayer tshirt, sporting van dyke facial hair, asymmetrical piercings, and long unkempt hair, reading a junior novel
• a huge middle eastern guy who insisted on leaning on me while we were both standing on the crowded bus
• and my personal favorite, a guy in his early forties holding a sheathed fencing foil with a plastic bag over the hilt.  the guy looked like he was somebody's dad, and was wearing a wedding ring.  he's got to be at least a cool uncle.  i refuse to believe that there isn't some impressionable child looking up to his or her sword-wielding uncle in the chicago metro area.  maybe he was the highlander.  that would make a lot of sense.  usually highlanders have their own cars though.

i'm trying to think of a good way to end this.  here is the hastiest ending i can think of.

i lied.  i forgot to log what's happened in the past few days.

tuesday, i went to work.  had a pretty shitty day, now that i think of it.  people have been changing pipes in my apartment building, and they forgot to hook up one of the pipes or something.  as of now, i still do not have water in my kitchen sink.  this gives me a very valid excuse for not doing dishes, but has resulted in my dehydration for the past few days.

wednesday, i went to work again.  drew up a diagram of my band's recording setup for when we move our equipment into my basement in columbus.  here it is, for your viewing enjoyment:

yes, i realize no one cares about this but me and possibly three other people.  but look at the COLORS!

thursday, still working on it.  at work right now, awaiting the boss's evaluation of my latest promotional video.  planning on seeing Cheap Girls at the Beat Kitchen tonight.  i should be working on my research.  i'll go do that now.  catch ya later, alligators.

Ride of the Valkyries

Wagner was a massive anti-semite.  that's a third of what i think of every time i hear that song.  here's the song:



here's what my immediate reaction is, every time i hear it:
1.  kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit
2.  i shouldn't like this song, Wagner really hated jews
3.  i love that scene from Apocalypse Now

it's a beautiful piece.  the intro is thrilling, tense, engaging, and it leads into that triumphant horn part that everyone with a pulse has heard at least once in his or her life.  it's inspiring music, really, it makes perfect sense that the Nazis would want to use it in their propaganda.  it makes you want to go out and conquer something.

it's a question of art versus motive, i suppose.  it's a classic piece of art, one of the most recognizable pieces of music ever made.  but if it's made so Hitler and his buddies can pump up their swastika-sporting brethren, should we still listen to it?  i'm not a very good philosopher, so i'm going going to even try to answer that question.  it's been in my thoughts for a couple of days now, since i saw a car commercial with Ride of the Valkyries hawking a Nissan something or other.  i doubt they worried as much about it as i've thought about it.

i'm not going to vote on tuesday.  i feel bad about it.  forgot to get my absentee ballot.  the last time i voted was in the presidential election in 2008.  i voted for McCain, believe it or not.  that may inspire a lot of gut reactions in you, but i did a lot of research before i voted.  realistically, he was the most liberal republican presidential candidate i've ever seen.  i actually preferred Obama when it came to the issues, but doubted he would have the influence within politics that McCain had, and would fall far short of his grand promises.  McCain sure as hell wasn't going to commit genocide on gay people or whatever people were scared of:  politicians these days are too scared to drastically polarize themselves on hot button issues, they'll get crucified when the other party starts gaining influence again.  hence "don't ask don't tell" and that sort of thing.  but once Obama won, i was fully behind him, i believe that's the way the populace should act unless something happens to compromise the ability of the president to lead (i.e. Watergate-style paranoia).  now, supporting the president does not mean everyone should agree with everything he says; the beauty of a democracy is the ability for people to change their own circumstances as dictated by the government.  but the general Obama-bashing is not helpful at all for the country, i believe that the vocal hatred of Obama by a rightist minority has led republican congressmen to entrench themselves and stop legislation that republicans would normally agree to.  which in turn has led to liberals pointing their fingers at the gop to disguise their own shortcomings, the conservatives pointing back, and a whole lot more squabbling.  i think Obama has done as well as we could expect any president to act in his situation.  i don't believe he is an outstanding president, but he is far from incompetent, an above-average president trying his best.

shit, how did i get started on politics?  this has been a thoroughly un-humorous post, and probably alienating on several levels.  realistically, i doubt i will ever see a candidate with the same mixture of conservative and liberal stances that i have.  i verge on radical on some liberal issues, but still have a conservative side of me when it comes to other issues (typically financial issues).

i have no clue why this ended up in a blog post.  i guess i don't really discuss politics that often.  this was a healthy thing to put in black and white, i suppose.

friday i came into work and realized the Eventric office dressed up for halloween.  not everyone was wearing costumes, but there was some joshing at my blue and white thermal's expense.  we also watched a couple of horror flicks.  i watched Nightmare on Elm Street for the first time.  it was a pretty neat movie, fun viewing.  went to North Avenue Guitars to look for a footswitch, talked to a guitar tech for a half hour, went home, watched Mad Men, and slept.  also wrote a bridge for one of my songs, played guitar for a while.  my electric guitar (a telecaster) is really starting to show some signs of wear from my picking arm and my recklessly un-technical strumming, but it's looking pretty cool so far.  seeing lots of wood through the finish.

saturday, lazed around the apt all day.  watched the rest of Mad Men season 4, then Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter, which was a movie revolving around the Stones playing Altamont in 1969.  that free Altamont show is generally pointed to as the end of the 60s counterculture, with the Hell's Angels killing a guy who pulled a gun in the crowd, and three other people dying from various other causes.  they actually have footage of a guy pulling a gun, and a Hell's Angel stabbing him two or three times.  go to about 4:00 to see the slow-motion video of it, from the film Gimme Shelter.



well, now that i've been thoroughly depressing and un-funny in this blog post, i think i'll just leave it.

insomnia + laziness = 3 seasons of Mad Men watched

been nine days since my last one of these.  ten depending on how technical you are and what your rounding system is.  i'm not exactly a pro at this blogging business yet.

let's see...

last wednesday.  i saw Avi Buffalo at Schubas, on the guest list courtesy of JMA.  (i plan on capitalizing for emphasis, excitement, and eccentricity [i had two "e" words, thought i'd add a third for the alliteration], and with no particular grammatical rules in mind in case you were wondering)  anyway.  Avi Buffalo, capitalized because it's a band name and i've arbitrarily decided that band names should be capitalized from now on, put on a pretty solid show.  it was in the vein of the surf-psych hipster stuff that's coming out of the west, but more accessible, more genuine.  if their singer got better, they might have a shot at really going somewhere.  they had the best girl drummer i've seen in a while.

last thursday.  don't remember.  probably did something.

friday.  started Mad Men, and the downfall of my activity outside of work.  i tend to go on tv binges when i watch it.  i don't own a tv, so don't really watch tv casually.  i watch tv with purpose.  i sit down, and watch one show for six or seven hours straight at a time.  which is how i've gotten through three seasons of Mad Men in less than a week.  it is also highly detrimental to my social, mental, and physical status, making me a pasty neurotic hermit that survives on frozen pizza and that burrito place down the street.  La Amistad.  they deserve capitalization.  you know the place.

saturday, watched more Mad Men, wrote riffs for two songs, messed with my tube screamer/ds-1/amp tone for a couple of hours.  did absolutely none of the research i had promised myself and others that i would do.  went to see Daniel Martin Moore at Schubas.  i was his driver to and from the Iron & Wine show at OSU a week prior, and we had hit it off enough for him to put me on his guest list for the show. i got there just as he was starting (thanks, Mad Men, you're ruining my life now).  it was a nice, mellow show, traditional-style folk that added a virtuosic guitar player who knew not to shred.  ended with a devastatingly slick loop that Ric Hordinski (the guitarist) played, with three intertwining fingerpicking parts so perfectly timed that they just let the loop go for a few minutes.  at one time, both artists were off the stage, listening.  then DMM came up and faded out the amp volume, ending the show.  i got chicago pasta and pizza afterwards, just the pasta though.  it was good.

sunday, watched Mad Men.  started to feel ridiculous about myself.

monday.  jeff's back from new york, we had a fair amount of work at JMA.

tuesday.  all interns on deck, typical tuesday.  made veggie chorizo burritos at about 10:30, because chicago is dark all the time and it's seriously screwing with my internal clock.  i may have reverted back to a 25 hour day.  studies indicate that without day and night cues, humans' internal clocks will change to 25 hour cycles instead of the 24 hour cycles we normally run on.  see, now aren't you glad you read this blog?  if you actually read something that was entertaining, you would've never heard that useless tidbit.

this thing is a wall of text.  here's something to break up the monotony.  it's a damn fine commercial:



wednesday.  perfect storm to make me late for work.  slept through my alarm, first.  then, the water was shut off in my apartment because i woke up so late and they're replacing pipes in my apt building.  so i took a boy scout shower with the water from my coffee maker, brushed my teeth, and was on my way.  but the bus didn't come for twenty minutes.  i go to my car so i can drive to work.  my car is on a one-way street, and there is a massive piece of construction equipment blocking the intersection i would need to go through to drive my car anywhere.  so i wait another 15 minutes for the bus.  end up at work an hour late.  it's ok.  i had leftover veggie chorizo burritos.

thursday.  finished my Eventric teaser video for the third time.  this time it's good, though, the bosses approve.  i get to start splicing together videos tomorrow for a trade show that's coming up.  wrote the music to lyrics i had had already.  it's got a ska vibe to it, but it's too straight of a rhythm for ska.  i'm hoping to get some weird syncopated percussion and bass to go along with the guitar part i wrote.

friday.  i'm not sleeping well.  still watching Mad Men.  i'm on season 4, episode 3, i believe.  this time last week, i had still not watched a single episode of the series.  that means i watched about 40 episodes in a week.  awful.  just listened to Beethoven's 5th arranged as salsa music on NPR.  it was ok.  not really a big fan.

i don't know if i know anyone who listens to as much music as me in a week.  in the past week, i have listened to:

on vinyl
This Is Reggae compilation from the 70s
Leave Home by The Ramones
Harvest by Neil Young
Sam by The Sidekicks

on ipod
Age of Adz by Sufjan Stevens (still don't know what all the fuss is about)
Fuckin A and The Body The Blood The Machine by The Thermals
Arkansas? by Arkansas?
a bunch of Alien Orders stuff on repeat
Andy Cook Split and Rhetoric by American War
Hospitals by Off With Their Heads
... And Out Come The Wolves by Rancid
Odelay and Midnite Vultures by Beck
i'm missing some, too.

at work, music constantly on
WXRT at JMA
office radio station at Eventric (including Charlie Mingus, The Buzzcocks, Miles Davis, Neil Young, The White Stripes, Elvis Costello, and Dave Brubeck, to name a few)

i probably am exposed to 50 hours of music a week at a minimum.  i've listened to music more than i've slept this week, by a long shot.  and if we toss in playing music, then i'm up to about 60 hours a week of music.  glad i can work at places where i listen to music for 35-40 hours a week.

finally feeling tired.  gonna put away the remains of the chorizo burritos (that one tube of fake chorizo made a ton of food.  definitely not complaining, though, i highly recommend it.  i got mine from Trader Joe's), then go to sleep.

i'm not planning on doing anything for halloween.  this'll be the first time i haven't dressed up since i got to college.  i think i'm ok with it.  i think the fact that i can't wear a dinosaur costume this time is making things easier on me.