Tiki-Tunes later? I’m thinking of doing some DJing in my best vacation wear.

Marla & I started Sunday Date Day. Here we are dancing after dinner.

I think Drive Like Jehu and Nomeansno aren’t talked about nearly enough.
And I admit:
I’m part of the problem.

Marla and I are having a quiet lunch date, so we can watch this film, that I’ve been looking forward to. If you go to salemcinema.com and rent one of their selections through the links they provide, the money goes to support Salem Cinema (Salem, OR), which is important. You can’t find movies like this without theaters like this. So, why not take a few mushrooms this afternoon? We are.

#SilverLining

I feel like there needs to be a version of this meme for me, to force me to say one nice thing about a band I don’t usually enjoy, and say one mean thing about a band I love. That seems a little more fair, somehow.

Okay, a lot of us are music nerds, but here’s a question I’m very curious about: favorite compositional music in the style of classical? Stravinsky or Bartók really do it for me as a listener, but there are hours and hours of compositions by people that I just don’t know, and have no experience with. Sometimes I turn on the classical radio just to hear something a little different, but I have no idea what I’m looking for (or who I should check out) in this area.

Anyone got any recommendations?

It’s not as well known, but I’ve always enjoyed that one Rezillos song, “I Love My Baby Cause She Makes Good Curry (Yeah).”

“Now, we are going to have the biggest party ever!”

“Serious, Killer jams.”

“All the kids are dooming.”
– Noel Fielding

Cottage Grove High School allumi, early-‘90’s Edition: Help me fill in the gaps in this Theater Prop anecdote.

What I remember:

This painting was a prop for a play that I worked on in High School. I was a wanna-be theater kid, and I hung out with the crew that put on plays, largely as a way to make friends. I only ever made it on stage in one play, an adaptation of Wells, “The Time Machine.” But for all other plays, I did all backstage work: props, foley, set building, etc.

The particular gag with this prop is that it was added to every night, as part of the play. (There were a few of these “paintings,” but I only got the one.) The play was a bit of a farce, so the painter was an eccentric artist who would throw paint on haphazardly. Another gag is that he would paint for a moment, re-evaluate his work, turn the painting 180 degrees, and keep going.

More details, like who was in it, and the play itself, are lost to me. All I remember is that I helped with the play, and either walked off with this painting afterwards, or negotiated with the crew to keep it. I should add that I had nothing to do with the painting or making of this prop; I think I was doing off-stage sound FX and foley for this play. I just really liked the painting, and kept it.

It’s been many things over the years, as it is a piece of wood, but it’s mostly been in storage, in garages and similar places.

I’m astonished that the colors look as good as they do, after 25+ years of abuse.

Anyone from CG remember anything else about this play / painting / the theater kids at High School in the early ‘90s?

Many many moons ago, Douglas Hoffman and I booked an experimental show for a couple of touring bands. Unfortunately, the bands had to pull out. At first, The Twins were going to perform… then we were gonna do a webstream… and then… well, here we are.

As we all learn to cope with the New Normal, there are so many things that still need to be done. And as you try and solve new problems like what to eat and what to enjoy, why not order some noms from The Space Concert Club, and check out all the incredible live streams that people are doing, all over the web today. I might do a little Mini-Mutations jam later, if enough people are interested, but I’ve been doing a lot of streams lately. I’ll leave it to a vote: should I stream tonight?

In the meantime, support The Space, get some vegan food, and when all of this is done, The Olsen Twins Ghostlight Ensemble will make an appearance at The Space Concert Club, and it will be glorious.

And you’ll probably be able to stream that one, too. Because that’s how they roll.

Thanks again Order Space Food. Support Local businesses. And vote: should I stream a Mini-Mutations jam later?

“If you ever meet Devo fans, they’re probably a very nice person, and you’ll probably be friends with them forever.” – Michael Pilmer

The best part of having the studio setup now is that I can EASILY digitize tapes, and it can be done while I’m doing something else. I can pop in a tape, set it to digitize, do some dishes, read some comics, and when I hear the “click,” I turn around, hit stop, flip the tape over, and repeat.

This is not a project I hope to complete any time soon; I have FAR too many tapes, and really, most of them don’t really need it. But I’m selectively targeting mix-tapes, live recordings of performances, and stuff that I can’t replace anywhere else anyway else. Even that project will take a VERY long time, but at least I can listen to those mix tapes Cheryl Albrecht made for me almost 20 years ago.

Oh: I finished that song. It only took me twice as long as I thought, and now I actually like it.

I guess it all worked out?

The non-chore part of the day – in fact, a significant part of the day, really – was spent trying to record a song, which was one of those experiments that revealed the limitations of my home studio set-up, and my own skill in certain areas (and, of course, became a metaphor in so many, many ways).

Take after take was blown, as if I’ve never heard or seen a bass before, and was discovering how you could play it (and record it) as I was going. And let’s not forget the technical issues! Perfectly good takes went un-recorded, other’s were so poorly captured as to be embarrassing, as a wanna-be engineer. It was so hard to solve for certain issues I kept running into, and each solution deployed was not working. It became one of those puzzles that was so difficult to solve that at one point I had stop and clean my garage, and then later, stop again and take a nap, just to get a couple break from what was frustrating me. I almost tore down and re-built the entire studio, until it finally occurred to me that there was probably a short in one of my cables that was the real issue. (And, of course: it was.)

And, in the end, I actually finished the basics for the song, so it might work out, and maybe I can just relax and let it go, given enough time. It was trying while it was happening, but it was over now, and maybe I have something I can work with.

But for most of the day, it felt like it wasn’t gonna work, and that every action I was taking was not helping, and occasionally, making things much worse. Everything that could go wrong was happening, in spite of the best preparedness efforts I would deploy, or long considerations I would make before each attempt. I probably should have given up sooner; I could have finished cleaning the garage, or maybe put in some reading. But instead, I kept banging my head against the metaphor, trying to solve the problem, and not succeeding for most of the time I was working on it.

Certainly, I can hear the final product, and hear the time I put into it. So it’s not like I feel like the time was lost or something. I think I can put in some more work on it tomorrow, and maybe all the things that didn’t work today will start to feel like simple hours put in, and effort toward turning things around, and setting things on the right path.

Right now it feels like a sort of defeat. Tomorrow, it will probably feel like hard work. In a week, all I’ll remember is that it took me a few days to get that one song “right.”

At least, that’s the hope, anyway. Right now it’s depending on a whole lot of faith, which doesn’t always feel like enough. And it isn’t, in the moment. In the moment is hard, and it sucks, and you can’t change that.

All you can do is wait.

I did a major garage-overhaul.
There’s still a lot of work left to be done, but… it’s a start.

The Rest of The World: We are canceling big, annual cultural events happening later this summer, and we’re considering everything on hold until sometime in the fall.

‘Merica: We’re gonna open ‘er back up for Easter. We’ll be alright, with the lord on our side. Spring is here!

Who wants a porch-couch?

There’s always time for KARP.

Hmmmmm. Lot of time to consider how I’m going to vote right now, during a Heath & Economic crisis. Hmmmmm…

“The first example of interactive cinema was ‘Kinoautomat’ (1967), which was written and directed by Radúz Činčera. This movie was first screened at Expo ’67 in Montreal. A live moderator appeared on stage at certain points to ask the audience to choose between two scenes. The chosen scene would play following an audience vote.”

Slow & Steady helps us lose the race?
https://www.pnwne.com/post/governor-orders-shelter-in-place-for-oregonians

Well, at least The Graveyard is finally closed.

I get the Johnny Appleseed song (from the Disney movie “Melody Time”) stuck in my head a lot. When the song pops into my head, the lyrics are:

“Oh, the Earth is good to me
and so I thank the Earth
for giving me the things I need
The sun and the rain and the apple seeds
Oh the Earth is good to me.”

It seemed really DIY, but also had a bit of that bootstrap mentality to it that Disney loves so much. I liked the ecological angle, and it is a catchy tune.

I hadn’t seen that cartoon in over 30 years years. So I put it on tonight, living in the modern era where everything is easy to watch anything. And I came to discover the song I remembered was completely different. I had replaced, in my mind, the word “Lord” with “Earth.”

I don’t know why, how, or when, but I somehow eliminated the Christian message from this story. (A story that is, in its original form, a very Christian tale.)

Clearly — how’s that saying go? — my mind works in mysterious ways.

Growing up in Cottage Grove, there was a lot of time spent dreaming about the future, imagining what I would do when I left, imagining I was on stage, in a band. It’s hard to imagine, then, someone wearing my band’s t-shirt, sitting in Bohemia Park, in the year 2020.

Man, this week is really weird.

Because Douglas Hoffman is a real sweetie, I can survive the crisis over-supplied! Thanks so much, dude!

Last Sunday was my last “normal” day. After that, we’ve been “at home,” except to run errands / stock up. (Which has been very minimal.)

I’ve also managed to clean every room in the house, sweeping, mopping, the whole works. Cleaned the fridge, and my office.

Once the garage gets cleaned, and the yards are done, I might be in trouble. Or, rather, you will be: I’ll probably have a new radio show every day at that stage.

This is my favorite picture of my maternal grandmother.

For several years now I’ve had a ridiculous number of velcro wraps, so I can tie up cables and whatnot at shows, or at home, when I want to tie up a cable, or pin down something behind a stereo or TV.

My real concern right now is that I will have tied down every cable and wire I can find, save for one that I don’t have enough velcro for.

I am stubborn. I am opinionated. I get into arguments online with people I don’t agree with. I am anti-corporate, anti-money, anti-closed-mindedness. I am anti-bland. I’m critical of art and performance and the expressions and the utterances of the world around me. My art is expressly political, and yet my own skills serve no political or activist function. I am a contradiction in so many, many ways.

But knowing all of you sharpens me, like a knife, and for that I am absolutely grateful.

Knowing you makes me patient. Knowing you helps make me more understanding. Knowing you shows me how silly arguing can be, and how defining myself by what I’m against is a narrow way of expressing ones self. Knowing you allows me to enjoy the moment, rather than move to consider the past and future obsessively. You help me see my own place in the world, and how I do make an impact, even when I don’t feel like I can.

I might be contradictory and inexplicable, pretty much all of the time, but it’s knowing you that allows me the chance to feel like I belong.

And for that, I thank you. So very, very much.

Hmmmmmm. Trying not to catastrophize, but damn. This is not good.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/system-doomed-doctors-nurses-sound-nbc-news-coronavirus-survey-n1164841?fbclid=IwAR2jbRe9AWdjcIhhdvAxBgndR6Da7undfDpyzjmSO0IpXkQSG8ZQJ-Frroc

Someone just bought the compete Bandcamp discography! That is very cool! Every little bit helps, and I don’t mind shilling again. There’s one more hour to take advantage of the sale. Every little bit helps.
http://wtbc.bandcamp.com/

It’s not surprising, but still, more signs of change as all of this shakes out. I’ll certainly miss the idea of the alternative weekly paper. Probably time to invest in a printing press.
https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/03/total-annihilation-coronavirus-may-just-be-the-end-for-many-alt-weeklies/?utm_source=Pew Research Center

Emotions are high. Lots of crying. Everything is in total chaos, and we need to talk and hold each other to feel a little better about it all. It’s a tense moment.

Of course, in the middle of it all, we both pass gas.

And so it begins…

I was doing good for a minute.

But today got hard again.

So I need stupid novelty songs.

Because everything seems sorta impossible.

What kind of Hobo are you preparing to become?

Just imagine all the amazing life-lessons and self-reflective epiphanies we are obstinately NOT learning as we all collectively stare into the abyss?

“W-w-way of the f-f-f-f-future. Wayofthefuture.”

“Lenny Bruce & Lester Bangs.”
https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/03/r-e-m-s-its-the-end-of-the-world-coronavirus/

I have a lot of unreasonable musical opinions. “I can’t stand arias. All country music after 1975 is crap. Shellac is good.”

We’re all guilty of it, and we all say the most extreme, inane, objectively untrue bullshit, partially informed by a highly cultivated sense of taste, but largely informed by how we FEEL at the moment we are talking about that particular musical expression.

What kind of unreasonable music opinions do you have? I’m sure there are plenty of fun ones out there.

“Miller: A lot of people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidences and things. They don’t realize that there’s this, like, lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean. Suppose you thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly, somebody says, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate of shrimp. Out of the blue, no explanation. No point looking for one, either. It’s all part of the cosmic unconsciousness.

Otto: You eat a lot of acid, Miller? Back in the hippie days?

Miller: I’ll give you another example. You know the way everybody’s into weirdness right now. Books in the supermarkets about Bermuda triangles, UFOs, how the Mayans invented television. That sort of thing.

Otto: I don’t read them books.

Miller: Well, the way I see it, it’s exactly the same. There ain’t no difference between a flying saucer and a time machine. People get so hung up on specifics. They miss out on seeing the whole thing. Take South America, for example. In South America, thousands of people go missing every year. Nobody knows where they go. They just, like, disappear. But if you think about it for a minute, you realize something. There had to be a time when there were no people. Right?

Otto: Yeah. I guess.

Miller: Well where did all these people come from? Huh? I’ll tell you where. The future. Where did all these people disappear to? Huh?

Otto: The past?

Miller: That’s right! And how’d they get there?

Otto: The fuck do I know?

Miller: Flying. Saucers. Which are really? Yeah you got it: Time machines. I think a lot about this kind of stuff. I do my best thinking on the bus. That’s how come I don’t drive, see.

Otto: You don’t even know how to drive.

Miller: I don’t want to know, I don’t want to learn. See? The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.”

Trying something new today. At Noon. Tune in.

I’m gonna run a few errands today, during my short window of being out of the house.

Anyone need anything?

Otherwise, everything falls apart.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/17/coronavirus-updates-bernie-sanders-calls-for-2000-cash-payments.html

Maybe I need to brush up on my French.
https://www.graphic.com.gh/international/international-news/coronavirus-france-president-macron-suspends-rent-taxes-and-utilities.html

This seems important.
http://chng.it/JhjtVvthMk

I memed

This says it nicely.

As I work to engage with just-the-right kind of post-apocalyptic fashion, I must ask for honest answers: should I have:

1.) wild, unkempt facial hair that betrays the wisdom I speak

or

2.) A small but sharp John Waters style affair, to aid me in bartering and conversation on the black market?

Hey Salem: I’m about to run my errands for the day, so I can get back home to sing a certain Joy Division song all day. While I’m running errands, are there people who are cooped up and need something delivered? I can pick it up, drop it off, whatever you need. Hit me up, send me a message. I’m happy to help.

Maybe you are looking to get something in the mail, to help pass the time? I’m more than happy to help.
https://acronyminc.org/2020/03/16/mail-call/

Instead of self-care, I engage in “self-wrapping.”

When I discovered punk rock in the early ’90’s, one of the things we talked about was how we were living in the apocalypse already, and the rest of the world hasn’t yet caught up. (Cathead even had a song about it, of which this is the best recording.) Most subculture seems to have been “hip” to the notion that all of THIS could just , and then we would have to live with what it’s like when people stop being nice and start being… well, untethered to cultural references, anyway.

So, there is a tiny part of me — a very, very small part, I should underline — that feels like I’ve seen this coming for 20 years, at least. The writing was on the wall when The Ramen City Kid and I realized that Eugene was no longer viable, and as we looked around, all of our options were… bad. The punk in me always knew that all of this was temporary, even the rock and roll paradise that Portland seemed to be when I got there.

Anyway, in light of this crisis — this very real, very bad, and very-likely-to-have-LONG-TERM-consequences-that-we-have-not-really-fully-thought-through crisis — there is a part of me that keeps thinking, “Well, how is this different from how punks and weirdos have always seen the world?” We’ve been catastrophizing everything for decades, screaming at walls and coloring our hair as brightly as possible, to try and wake all of you up into looking past what you expect to see.

It’s like, the rest of the world needed this many catastrophes and crises to happen before they finally see the world the way punks do.
https://wtbc.bandcamp.com/track/welcome-to-apocalypse

I have a portable streaming camera setup, that I use quite often for my own events. All I need is a power outlet and wireless access and I am good to go.

Filming remotely and uploading later is also possible.

So, if you are wanting to perform during this period of uncertainty, and you are well, let’s talk. Maybe that show that was canceled can get out there another way.

Well, fuck it. Everything is a mess, the sky is falling and I want my mommy, and there’s nothing left to do but drown sorrows. There’s ample hand washing stations at The Space Concert Club, and if nothing else goes too much more wrong between now and 8 PM, you will find me there. And again, if all continues to go well, Red Panda Death March will be releasing their cassette, that I had the pleasure of mixing and mastering for them in the ancient days of late 2019.

There’s three other bands on the bill, too, and we can all stand about six feet from each other and scream into the abyss along with each other. Maybe if things are loud enough, everything will be fine?

Everything is catching—
YES!
Everything is catching on fire!

zing

I feel very lost, and confused.

Well, having hopes and dreams was fun while it lasted.

“The original title of this episode was ‘Max Sledgeroom,’ since it features a parody of Max Headroom. But ABC objected and the title was changed. David Rasche was briefly considered to play Max Headroom.”

I don’t like this crisis. I’m gonna go to sleep and hope a new crisis is waiting for me when I wake up.

I’m glad that, in times of crisis, Zizek remains “on brand.”
https://myheartwillgoonandsoonandsoon.blogspot.com/2020/03/slavoj-zizek-coronavirus-is-kill-bill.html

No Basketball, no Baseball. What will we do?

Guess it’s time to earnestly reflect on what we want from this universe and decide how we want to re-organize everything socially and politically after this calamity passes.

Or something.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2020-03-12/mlb-suspends-spring-training-indefinitely-coronavirus-pandemic

This is why we can’t have nice things.

How much, per person, could we have each gotten instead of the FED doing some lame version of a Cards Against Humanity joke, where they just throw money in a hole?

I’m betting a fairly substantial amount, when all is said and done.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fed-to-inject-1-5-trillion-in-bid-to-prevent-unusual-disruptions-in-markets-11584033537

Ahem. Can I say this loud enough?

Well, the three shows I was looking forward to attending were all canceled.

Two shows I was playing were canceled.

So… yeah… my music life is in a weird place right now.

I mean, nothing shady here. At all.

SXSW will not be refunding tickets following coronavirus cancellation

Spring is the time of year where everything going batty, and it’s hard to keep everything in sync.

So, I’m looking for musical partners in crime, who might want to make some noise in Salem on March 26th.

What do you think? Anyone wanna get down in the Cherry City?

I don’t know why, but it makes me pretty emotional when Brian Blessed reveals his true character on screen.

As a child, I saw this movie, and loved it. But I couldn’t remember the name for years. All I remembered is this scene (51:22 through 56:30). As I remembered it, they stare at a dogfood can and have a brief (and funny / interesting) epiphany, but the details of it were lost to me with time, even by my early 20s.

I figured out what the movie was, about 10 years ago, through some furious googling, and discovered it was on YouTube. I scanned though the film, just to make sure it’s the same movie. It was, so I satisfied myself, and left it there.

But, out of a fear of it being less than I remember, I decided it wasn’t worth finding out if this scene, or if any of this movie, was as good as I remembered. But today I watched just this clip, out of curiosity as to what the characters actually say.

Woah.

Apparently, this is a Japanese interpretation of an American children’s novel, and according to the author of the novel, this scene – sort of the centerpiece of the philosophical perspective of the book – “mangles” the ideas of the book.

So, imagine my astonishment, as I watch this scene, and I’m shocked to see so much that I latched onto as a young man, laid bare by this scene. It has a lot of the “DIY is the only way / no one will ever help you until you help yourself” attitude that I still believe to some degree, but it’s delivered in this strange metaphor, tucked away in this kids movie from my early childhood.

Perhaps it speaks a little more to me than it should, or even will, to anyone else.

But I’m having some profound ruminations this afternoon, and I feel the urge to listen to more Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band than I usually put on this time of day.

I THINK you might want to come out to this show this week, as this is gonna get pretty raucous, and will be a lot of fun. I believe that Red Panda Death March will be releasing their new tape, which was mixed by… me! (And I think it sounds pretty good.) But the rest of this show is pretty dope. If you like hardcore and punk, you may want to make an appearance at The Space Concert Club this Friday.

This season, remember:
2 Shots of Espresso + 2 Benadryl = 7-11 Acid

Good Luck out there.

After everything is said and done, it was fucking beautiful outside today.

Here’s more from the continuing “mental health improvement” front: a new release from three of your favorite NW noisemakers. This is the second installment in the “Bast Awakening / DEATH MUTATIONS” series of split releases, and this one has a bonus track by Mini-Mutations. Assembled, printed and duplicated by me, limited to 50 numbered copies. The covers are reversible, and offer four different ways you could present this disc to your collection. This release is for a mail-order club, and is not available digitally (yet).

If you would like to get one, contact me soon. 50 copies goes fast.

It felt good making this. Maybe that’s the first step.

Allright. It’s my Friday night.

Time to party.

Things I Don’t Understand That Everyone Seems To Love:

10.) Seinfeld
09.) Capitalism
08.) It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
07.) Rick & Morty
06.) Why Everyone Is So Concerned About Spoilers
05.) Listening To Pandora
04.) Shaved Coconut
03.) Getting The Same Kind of Relaxation Out of Yoga & Meditation That Others Rave About
02.) Howard Stern
01.) Reddit

You know what’s hard? Old people who are clueless and mean.

You know what’s also hard? Clueless young people who are also mean.

You know what else is hard? Clueless people my age who are mean.

It’s not generational; it happens that there are just a lot of assholes.

Wait: Is it really International Women’s Day?

And it’s on Daylight Savings Time? Where we start the day with one LESS hour.

Really? Like, nobody thought this through?

Fucking hell. I think I can guess who double booked that one.

We can’t even get ONE SINGLE DAY right.

ETC

Ozzy can be very instructive during times of crisis.

So, it looks like there’s a shortage of Mini-Mutations music and ACRONYM, Inc. ‘zines due to the recent outbreak. If you don’t order now, you won’t have enough to get you through the next few months. #JustSayin Sounds like late stage capitalism but ok.

Given our current cultural situation, what are the ethical ramifications of me selling this to the highest bidder?

(edit: Nevermind. It’s already gone. Unrelated: I never have to worry about money again.)