Songwriting Competition

The open stage I play on Monday nights at Tip Top Tavern had a songwriting competition. Last week the host came up with a phrase ("the crossroads of nowhere" or "the crossroads to nowhere", not really sure if it's of or to) and encouraged everyone to write a song that used the phrase. I had decided that with all the fuss and struggle writing a song can be for me, I wasn't going to try to force it. If I write a song, I want it to be about something that I feel I need to express; it should be a healthy release of creative forces. I was certain that trying to fulfill an outside requirement would dilute the entire process to the point that I wouldn't be able to come up with anything good.

After an extremely busy weekend, I hadn't really touched my guitar since Thursday. I made a post on Facebook about how I wasn't sure if I was even going to show up to open stage in the evening, but a small handful of people did their best to convince me otherwise. So I sat down at about 3 to play a bit. I put my capo on the third fret to play "Clementine", but before I even started the song, a few other random chords just stumbled out of my hands without even thinking about it. I sang some lyrics.

When you finally find where you should be
I hope it's next to me
So I can still see your smile

That's it; that's what I had to work with. Not the greatest lines I've ever written, by any means. It all just poured out in a flash, and I played the chords and sang those lyrics a hundred times. It seemed like it could be the beginning of a song about someone who wants to hit the road, and I thought that might combine well with the songwriting challenge phrase. I decided that if the song was just going to pretty much present itself to me, ripe for the plucking, I might as well see it through and do the competition after all.

I wrote the entire song in less than an hour. It was a blur. I look back on some of the phrases now and I don't even remember coming up with them. I recorded a comically sloppy demo in haste, threw it on my iPod Touch, and listened to it over and over in the car as I drove around town. I played through it a dozen times after I returned home, before heading out to the bar, but I was still having trouble with the melody.

I got to the bar just in time to write out the lyrics and chords before my turn. I wound up having a little trouble remembering some of the melody, as well as how to connect the verses and choruses and bridge, etc. But I covered my mistakes well and managed to get through the song without falling apart, and I suppose I couldn't have hoped for anything more with a song only a few hours old.

There were some other really great songs, both before and after me. I was happy to see so many other people participating. I had resigned that I wouldn't win, and it didn't bother me in the least. And why should it? I had been given a week to participate, had told myself that I wouldn't, and had decided in the final hour to give it a shot. I am and always have been and always will be a terrible procrastinator.

The vote was held by secret ballot and the winner was announced about half an hour later. And it was...me? I admit I was surprised. I kept trying to work out what I had just heard; there's no way it was my name. I just didn't expect to win with my hastily thrown together jingle jangle whiny junk.

Anyway, I'm glad I did it. It actually wound up being kind of fun writing the song. I don't often write fictional songs, but incorporating the challenge phrase seemed to trigger a series of creative reflexes that might not have otherwise occurred on my own. I still don't know if I'll include the song into my live set. Maybe with a bit of polish it might make it someday. Maybe I'll record it and put it online for you to hear someday. Maybe. Someday. Procrastination...

Oh, you're holding on to a faded memory
And losing sleep, though it's not like you to worry
Everyone who knows you knows you will get lost

New Song "Stacy Please" (Recording)

Wrote a song. Recorded it. I don't really remember what it's about. Maybe it was about Stacy Dupree? Or perhaps Stacy Keach? Possibly Gwen Stacy? Seems plausible.

Maybe I didn't even write it. Maybe I just remembered a song written in a former life. I don't even own a bed, birds don't talk to me, and I've never had a sip of alcohol in my life.

I actually wrote this song in elementary school on the playground during recess.

This was the fifth and best take, and I discovered after I was satisfied and closed the book on recording for the evening that there is a weird stutter/glitch in the first chorus. Guess what, that's just how it is for now.

Sorry for all the computer noise in the background. This crotchety old laptop likes to keep both of its fans on high pretty much all the time these days.


it's friday night, 1 a.m.
no idea where i've been

stacy please don't go
i am dying to dream tonight

it's time to sleep, but i hate my bed
it's much too large for just one head

stacy please don't be cruel
i am trying to scream your name
but you know i'm a fool
thought that you might want the same

it's saturday, i hear the birds
saying to me it could be worse

stacy please don't cry
smoke your last cigarette
and for now i'll try
to drink until i forget

stacy please
stacy please
stacy please
stacy please

P.S. Buzz users need to click through to the actual post to view the embedded video.

Rebuttal Against Religious Intolerance

I received the following forwarded email one day last week.

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Barack Obama, during his Cairo speech, said: "I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of  America 's story."

AN AMERICAN CITIZEN'S RESPONSE:

Dear Mr. Obama:

Were those Muslims that were in America when the Pilgrims first landed? Funny, I thought they were Native American Indians.

Were those Muslims that celebrated the first Thanksgiving day? Sorry again, those were Pilgrims and Native American Indians.

Can you show me one Muslim signature on the United States Constitution?

Declaration of Independence?

Bill of Rights?

Didn't think so.

Did Muslims fight for this country's freedom from England? No.

Did Muslims fight during the Civil War to free the slaves in America? No, they did not. In fact, Muslims to this day are still the largest traffickers in human slavery. Your own half brother, a devout Muslim, still advocates slavery himself, even though Muslims of Arabic descent refer to black Muslims as "pug nosed slaves." Says a lot of what the Muslim world really thinks of your family's "rich Islamic heritage," doesn't it Mr. Obama?

Where were Muslims during the Civil Rights era of this country? Not present.

There are no pictures or media accounts of Muslims walking side by side with Martin Luther King, Jr. or helping to advance the cause of Civil Rights.

Where were Muslims during this country's Woman's Suffrage era? Again, not present. In fact, devout Muslims demand that women are subservient to men in the Islamic culture. So much so, that often they are beaten for not wearing the 'hajib' or for talking to a man who is not a direct family member or their husband. Yep, the Muslims are all for women's rights, aren't they?

Where were Muslims during World War II? They were aligned with Adolf Hitler. The Muslim grand mufti himself met with Adolf Hitler, reviewed the troops and accepted support from the Nazi's in killing Jews.

Finally, Mr. Obama, where were Muslims on Sept. 11th, 2001? If they weren't flying planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people on our own soil, they were rejoicing in the Middle East. No one can dispute the pictures shown from all parts of the Muslim world celebrating on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and other cable news networks that day.  Strangely, the very "moderate" Muslims who's asses you bent over backwards to kiss in Cairo, Egypt on June 4th were stone cold silent post 9-11. To many Americans, their silence has meant approval for the acts of that day.

And THAT, Mr. Obama, is the "rich heritage" Muslims have here in America.

Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to mention the Barbary Pirates. They were Muslim.

And now we can add November 5, 2009 - the slaughter of American soldiers at Fort Hood by a Muslim major who is a doctor and a psychiatrist who was supposed to be counseling soldiers returning from battle in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That, Mr. Obama is the "Muslim heritage" in America.

EVERY AMERICAN MUST READ THIS!!

Be Sure to SEND IT to All. Even Print it out and Send by Snail Mail!!

Now just maybe we are beginning to understand our “new foreign policy.”

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The following is my response. Please keep in mind that I am not usually a politically minded person, and I am a far cry from being any sort of activist. I did a bit of research and cited sources where possible, but this is not something I do with any regularity and I was mostly just following my gut. As such, if you are the type of person who eats this stuff up frequently, you may find a few faults in the way I've gone about it, but I think it gets the job done. Here we go.

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I don't normally get involved in conversations about politics and religion, because such conversations invariably turn friends, family, and colleagues against each other, if only temporarily. I'm known to sit quietly and wait the conversation out or to find some way to leave the room and return when it's done. But this email moves me to the point that I feel morally obligated to respond. It makes me feel ashamed to be part of an American culture that is so intolerant and disrespectful of other cultures; I want to delete it and pretend I didn't read it. I cannot for the life of me understand how the dominant religion of this land, which so fervently claims to advocate an altruistic viewpoint and proposes such agreeable themes as love and harmony, could be the source of such generalized hatred and dismissal of the more than 1.5 billion followers of Islam worldwide.

This email is an attack on words uttered by President Obama in a speech given nearly a year ago. I did a quick search online for the words "obama cairo islam story" and the very first result was the entire transcript of the speech from which this excerpt came [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/remarks-by-the-president-at-cairo-university-6-04-09]. If you will read his speech, you will find that the overlying theme is one of mutual peace. In it, he extends the figurative olive branch to a people with whom there have been tremendous tensions and violence on a global scale. It takes a man whose desire is to see an end to hatred and intolerance to offer those words. We live in what is arguably the most powerful nation on earth, past or present; but evil begets evil, hatred begets hatred, and violence begets violence. There is only one way to bring about an end to this vicious cycle, and that is to lay down weapons and offer an open hand.

The context of the aforementioned quotation is completely removed when it is presented alone and subsequently followed by angry, intolerant misinformation. I would like to share the following excerpt, which follows immediately after the one that originally spurned this hateful email. It is literally the next sentence in his speech:

The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President, John Adams, wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims."

I wonder if Adams would now feel ashamed of his words, which seem to mock him in light of events that transpire in today's society. There is much worse than enmity in store for Muslims; there is open hatred and hostility.

The following excerpt is from just a bit later in President Obama's speech, directly after he declares part of his responsibility as President of the United States to "fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear":

The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words -- within our borders, and around the world. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum -- "Out of many, one."

He reminds his audience, as we are reminded in reading, that our very country was born out of a revolution. Many settlers who first came to America did so out of a desire to practice their religion freely. Puritans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists, among others, were free to pursue their faiths. It was this freedom in faith that was incorporated into the Constitution from the beginning: the protection under the First Amendment of every citizen’s right to freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition.

This freedom was granted and protected at the very birth of this nation, and make no mistake, Muslims were present then as well.

I will now address a few specific points from the forwarded email.

Did Muslims fight for this country's freedom from England? No.

Did Muslims fight during the Civil War to free the slaves in America? No, they did not.

It has been estimated that 15-30% of all enslaved African men in North America were, in fact, Muslims. [Encyclopedia of religion in the South, Samuel S. Hill, et al, 2005, p. 394] Some 5,000 African-American men fought as soldiers during the Revolutionary War, some of whom were Muslim, some of whom may not even have been slaves. In particular, records exist that document the efforts of Yusuf Ben Ali, also known as Joseph Benhaley, who served in South Carolina, as well as Bampett Muhamed, a Corporal in Virginia; Francis Saba, a Sergeant; and Joseph Saba, a fifer. Records also indicate the enrollment of an African man named Max Hassan, a Muslim, who served as a porter in service during the Civil War. Muslims indeed fought for freedom during America’s earliest years, freedoms that are now used to spread spiteful intolerance of them by the culturally uneducated.

Can you show me one Muslim signature on the United States Constitution?

Declaration of Independence?

Bill of Rights?

Didn't think so.

A Muslim may not have signed any of these important documents, but there was one man in particular who was learned in the Islam faith and supported tolerance of their ideals: Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence himself. Jefferson, along with James Madison, originally wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which would later form the groundwork for the First Amendment. In it, he wrote that it was the ultimate goal of the law to “comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahomedan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.” Furthermore, Jefferson advocated that “no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever” and that no one should suffer in any way based upon religious opinions or belief. [What Jefferson Really Thought About Islam, Christopher Hitchens, 2007, http://www.slate.com/id/2157314] [Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson, 1786, http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/lynch/religious-freedom.html]

Would Thomas Jefferson, who staunchly advocated religious tolerance, be ashamed of the way Muslims and other religious minorities are treated by his descendants? Would John Locke, a tremendous influence upon Jefferson, feel ashamed as well? [The Three Greatest Men, Thomas Jefferson, 1789, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm033.html] Locke wrote in 1689 that “neither Pagan nor Mahometan, nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion.” [A Letter Concerning Toleration, John Locke, 1689, http://www.constitution.org/jl/tolerati.htm]

Finally, it is worth mentioning that ordinary citizens of Virginia agreed with these viewpoints, when they provided the following petition to the state assembly in 1785:

Let Jews, Mehometans and Christians of every denomination enjoy religious liberty . . . thrust them not out now by establishing the Christian religion lest thereby we become our own enemys and weaken this infant state. It is mens labour in our Manufactories, their services by sea and land that aggrandize our Country and not their creeds. Chain your citizens to the state by their Interest. Let Jews, Mehometans, and Christians of every denomination find their advantage in living under your laws. [The Founding Fathers and Islam, James H. Huston, 2002, http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0205/tolerance.html]

Returning now to the original forwarded email:

Finally, Mr. Obama, where were Muslims on Sept. 11th, 2001? If they weren't flying planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people on our own soil, they were rejoicing in the Middle East.

The actions of a few individuals do not necessarily reflect on the masses. As such, it is short-sighted and irresponsible to hold the masses accountable for the actions of a few. There are untold crimes committed by Christians, Jews, and people of every other religious denomination each day. Some of the most heinous crimes in history, not just those associated with the Islamic faith, have come about as a result of religious fundamentalism.

Who do you suppose was responsible for the Crusades? Consider that the Crusades were military campaigns waged by much of Christian Europe over a period of around 200 years, during which approximately 2 million Europeans died in the Middle East alone. Make no mistake, this was religious warfare, perpetrated by a Christian people against non-Christians. But to hold all of Christianity and all followers of the faith accountable to the modern era for those actions is not wise. Indeed, if you are a Christian, do you feel the burden of guilt for those crimes?

The real problem is not Islamic faith. The problem is also not Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, or any other religion. The problem is the stubborn unwillingness of a believer of any faith to openly accept one who does not practice the same faith, the refusal to embrace the diversity of human culture, and the insistence that those who are different are dangerous. This mindset is the source of and cause for many of the most reprehensible acts ever committed against humanity throughout the history of civilization.

I don’t practice religious intolerance and I don’t wish to view any subsequent materials advocating a hateful, ignorant, intolerant view of any religion, ethnicity, or culture. I challenge you to to forward this email to those who forwarded you the original email, and for those people to forward as well, as so on.

Thank you.
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Special thanks to Joe Bildhauser, who spent close to eight hours researching and discussing the topic with me as I wrote. His assistance also proved invaluable during the editing process. It's entirely likely that this would not have been completed without his help.

"When I Return Home" (Recording)

Here's a song you probably haven't heard yet. It's not exactly new, but it's also not terribly old. It has existed for many eons in the nebulous void where songs go after I've written them but they aren't included in my live set. This is yet another in the growing list of material that's in a new or different style for me, and it sounds quite unlike anything I've ever done before or since.

I sequenced the drums and bass guitar in Reason, and the rest of it is just acoustic guitar and vocals. The drums sound a little stiff and robotic, and that was completely intentional. I had a little fun running them through the exquisite saturation/distortion plug-in that comes with Reason. The structure is straightforward, the style is pretty pop, and the vocal melody is simplistic.

Have a listen over on my MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/lazychimp

Lately conversation's been strangled
I'm trying hard not to worry
But I wear it on my sleeve
No need to hurry now

I want you here with me

The phone rings and my heart starts beating
A hundred times a minute
But I won't forget it
Don't think about the distance

I know we'll go dancing
When I return home

There is one heart of mine
And it belongs to you
Don't you forget, keep this in mind
If you should want to stray

I hope you'll be waiting
When I return home

Galápagos (Excerpts)

I finished the second of the fifty-two books given to me by my generous coffee shop friend two months ago: Galápagos, by Kurt Vonnegut. This was the second of the two books that he most highly recommended during our brief conversation. I must admit I was nowhere near as big a fan of this book as I was Steppenwolf (excerpts), which I read first. I also did not enjoy this as much as Cat's Cradle, currently my favorite Vonnegut book, but quite a bit more than Slaughterhouse-Five. I really seem to be in the vast minority when it comes to Slaughterhouse-Five, but alas...

Here are a few choice bits.

(7)     It was late in the afternoon now, and hotter than the hinges of hell outside.

(41)   What made marriage so difficult back then was yet again that instigator of so many other sorts of heartbreak: the oversize brain. That cumbersome computer could hold so many contradictory opinions on so many different subjects all at once, and switch from one opinion or subject to another one so quickly, that a discussion between a husband and wife under stress could end up like a fight between blindfolded people wearing roller skates.

(112)   In all the encounters between Davids and Goliaths, was there ever a time when a Goliath won?

(138)   Some automatic device clicked in her big brain, and her knees felt weak, and there was a chilly feeling in her stomach. She was in love with this man.
           They don't make memories like that anymore.

(142)   And I pity him, because I can still remember what I was like when I was sixteen. It was hell to be that excited. Then as now, orgasms gave no relief. Ten minutes after an orgasm, guess what? Nothing would do but that you have another one. And there was homework besides!

(145)   There are all these people bragging about how they're survivors, as though that's something very special. But the only kind of person who can't say that is a corpse.

Little Things (Redux)

Originally written and posted on my MySpace page on October 16, 2008, back when I used to have a job.

A song ends precisely when I get to wherever it is I'm driving. This morning on my way to work, I was in one of those moods where I decide that I'm just going to let my iPod shuffle its way gleefully through my collection. Sometimes I sit there with my hand at the ready, skipping furiously from song to song, passing over dozens at a time, until I reach one I'm content to hear. Sometimes it's a song that I want to sing along to, or sometimes it's a song that happens to hit me just right, emotionally. This morning, it was both, and I didn't even have to choose. I was a little under 10 minutes away from work, just about to get off I-69. I was tired, I was drowsy, I was groggy, I was grumpy.

The soft pitter-patter of the introduction to "Transatlanticism" by Death Cab for Cutie (from Transatlanticism, 2003) put a smile on my face. The lyrics are incredible. As a singer/songwriter myself, I just don't understand how something like this is concocted. It's beyond any of my efforts. No, it's beyond all of them, combined. It's deceptively simple, but it's about something pretty profound. How was an ocean made? Easy, the clouds rained particularly hard. And the simple problem at the root of all: it puts me farther away from you.

The song builds and builds over a period of nearly 8 minutes, and once it starts going, it doesn't stop. There is no cadence, no pause, no climax. It just sails incessantly toward the inevitable conclusion. The first time I heard it, I remember feeling disappointed that it didn't explode into a climax or change into a "2 & 4" beat, but I'm embarrassed by that thought now; what's here is infinitely more effective. Also worth mentioning is the incredible seven-note guitar line that pokes its nose out between stanzas. I have written at least one guitar part that is an unabashed homage to this melody, although it's not currently available online. Maybe someday soon? [All lies. It's here now. The song in question is "If You Don't Mind" and the guitar part is in the bridge.]

Anyway, I'm derailing into a song review, but that's okay. The point is that having a song like this, which has such a profound effect on me, bring my morning commute to its precise conclusion is a pretty cool event. There's something incredibly satisfying about pulling into a parking space just as the last chord trails off into obscurity. For the record, I'm the type of person who will sit in a car for up to a minute if a particularly good song is nearly done. If it's much longer than that, I'll usually stick around to the end of the chorus. If you've ever been in a car with me, you have probably witnessed this on at least one occasion. Even if it's your car, I may have made you stick around for just a bit longer. I've also asked a friend of mine to stop talking during the solo of "All Along the Watchtower" by Jimi Hendrix. But that's not the same thing. In fact, that belongs in a different category, called "Don't Talk During the Important Parts", and that includes both music and movies. I'll hit that topic at a later time.

By the way, guys, "Don't Talk During the Important Parts" also includes, as a sub-theme, "Don't Sip Through a Straw During the Important Parts", "Don't Crinkle Wrappers or Otherwise Eat Any Food That Produces Unwanted Noise During the Important Parts", and "Don't Cough or Make Other Bodily Sounds That Can Be Avoided or Delayed During the Important Parts". I'll come back to this at a later date, but hopefully we can all take these suggestions to heart for now.

As an aside, I have really come to adore Transatlanticism in the last six months or so, with one caveat: I skip two songs. "The Sound of Settling" and "Passenger Seat". The former because it's just a pretty lame song, and the latter because, well, I just don't listen to it anymore [for mostly personal reasons].

I had this whole thought process as I was walking from my car to the building, and I thought I'd write about more little nuggets like this that just make my day, but after all this rambling, I've forgotten what any of the rest were. Maybe another day, then...


Those people were overjoyed, they took to their boats
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door have been silenced forever more
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before

New Song "Dandelion" (Recording)

Another new song. Again in kind of a different style for me. I've never offered up my own dissection of a song I've written, but what the heck, this is a blog. Here we go.

(I think it'd be a solid idea to listen to the song and read the lyrics before diving into all my forthcoming blathering.)


The car won't start
The bars are all dark
Your friends are all gone
And they wonder where you are
Yeah they're wondering where

The phone is dead
I'll write you instead
Scribble down some bullshit
About how I miss you in bed
Yeah I miss you

It's all I can do to watch you go home
The fumes of our lives still hang in the air
If there's a god, well he's left me alone
For twenty-six years, so honey why should I care?

The change, it came
But I'm still the same
And if I seem blue
Then maybe you're to blame
Yeah you're to blame

It's all I can do to watch you go home
The fumes of our lives still hang in the air
If there's a god, well he's left me alone
For twenty-six years, so honey why should I care?
Why should I care?

The car won't start
The bars are all dark

The keg is dry
There's smoke in our eyes
There's ash in the trays
And we're saying our goodbyes
Yeah we're saying goodbye

It's all I can do to watch you go home
The fumes of our lives still hang in the air
If there's a god, well he's left me alone
For twenty-six years, so honey why should I care?
Why should I care?

It all started a couple weeks ago with the opening guitar part, which I just played over and over again. I love the way it resonates; it's standard tuning, but it kind of sounds like an open D tuning. I actually recorded just that guitar part and threw it on my iPod and listened to that in the car a lot. The third and fourth lines of the chorus kind of happened simultaneously as the chorus chord progression appeared, and for a while that was all I had. It took about a week for me to sit down at midnight one evening, when I felt the creative forces flowing, and I was alone in the house. (That's a big one for me, I think, when it comes to songwriting: being alone.) I stayed up until 3 in the morning writing out the verses. I tried something new with those, too; I wanted to be descriptive of the surroundings, to sort of build up a scene. I liked using imagery of broken things, places that closed, things that are generally done or used up. The feeling is that it's the absolute end of the end of the night.

The second verse doesn't really fit this mold, but it seemed to come out of nowhere, and I liked how it just encapsulated me right now. The last year of my life has seen an inconceivable amount of growth and change, but sometimes I still feel like the same old me, for better or for worse. I mean, here I am back in Indy, after all, doing music. So what's new? Exactly. Well, there's more to it than that. A lot's new, or at least different. And the truth is that the good outweighs the bad, but I still find myself plagued by ridiculous and unfounded self-doubt from time to time.

Another new thing for me is to return to the verse after the bridge. I always liked the way Ben Folds does this in so many of his songs. I think too often I go straight back to the chorus as almost a knee-jerk thing; like "well, I wrapped up that little noodly doodly bridge with a weird key change or something (see also: "Clementine" or "This Medication"), now let's hammer out the chorus and clock out!" This time I wanted to continue the 'story' (not that there really is a definable one) and I felt like ending the third verse on the "goodbye" line really brought it to a close. I was also in this mindset when I wrote "Externalization of an Inner Monologue", where I didn't even bother with a bridge, although you could argue that the first of the final three choruses functions like a bridge.

There are a few lines in here that vaguely hint at this being a relationship/love song. But I'm leery of milking that theme too much, and I feel like there are some other things in life worth singing about, if I can just find a way to do so. To that end, I think there's more in this song that can apply to other things. Your friends wonder where you are when you've been away or out of it; you change a little or a lot; you bid farewell to people in your life. In fact, "our lives" in the chorus used to be "our love", but listening to the song in the car it just struck me that it's really what the whole song is about: the fumes of our lives, the remnants of the lives we (or I) would like to have had but didn't.

I haven't been able to think of a name for this song, so I've been asking for help in coming up with one every time I play it, and the only person to ever suggest anything was Kat from the Wah Wahs, and she christened it "Dandelion", and so it shall be. Thanks!

So, did I kill the mystique by breaking it down and spoon feeding everything? Sorry. Rest assured I'll never do the same for songs like "Speed Dial", "Metropolis", or "Willem Dafoe".

P.S. This was the best of six takes. If I had decided to do a more normal recording (i.e. in Pro Tools) I might have been tempted to edit between my favorite two, but I'm running with the live thing for now so that's how it'll be.

P.P.S. Buzz users need to click through to the actual post to view the embedded video.

A Sweeping Narrative on the Status of My Life

I haven't written anything in several weeks. Let's see what's new.

A Sweeping Narrative on the Status of My Life:

A Character Study in Eight Acts

I. Songwriting

The last song I finished that I was truly happy with was "Externalization of an Inner Monologue". The story of how that song was written is kind of amusing; the entire thing was written in the car on the way from Muncie to Michigan City the evening before I left for that brief visit to North Dakota back in March. I mean everything; lyrics, melody, chord progression. I just started singing it, and I opened Virtuoso Piano on my iPod Touch to get a feel for what key I was in, then I got out my pocket notebook and wrote down the lyrics as they came to me as well as the Roman numerals of the chords, as I heard them in my head. It wasn't until several weeks later that I finally pulled out what I had written down and I just played the song, and there it was. After bombing it the first time I played it at an open mic (to be fair, I'd had a little too much to drink as well), I changed the key from F to D which made it both easier to sing and easier to play on guitar. I love the song and I haven't had a songwriting experience quite so sublime since I wrote "Speed Dial".

Since then I've noodled a bit, written page after page of lyric ideas, come up with some guitar parts, even have one or two songs that I could say are almost done, but nothing really seems to please me quite so thoroughly. I am getting a little hung-up with my tendency to overdo the whole love theme. A lot of my most popular songs (e.g. "Speed Dial") are unequivocally about love, so that's not a big deal, but as a songwriter I feel like there are other themes out there worth exploring; I just don't know exactly what I want to say or quite how to say it. That's a pretty big problem for a songwriter. I guess you'd call it writer's block. For now, I've got one song that I just finished writing at 3 a.m. last week that I briefly mentioned in a status update, and I'll probably get around to posting some sort of live basement recording of it when I find the motivation.

II. Performing

By now it's no secret that I've been playing open mics throughout Indy. I got this determined look on my face one night and just decided that it was time I embarked on my musical journey, and that for now my musical journey would consist of putting myself on a stage alone, somewhat awkwardly, and forcing myself to get reacquainted with that whole world. It's not often that I have played solo in the past, so it's taking some time to get adjusted. I find myself feeling nervous and rushing and making mistakes too often, so it's requiring some perseverance to be satisfied with my sound. It has been a very cool experience, meeting a plethora of different people. Alas, sometimes I will play four open mics in one week and get burned out on it and then play one or none the following week. Also I find myself vacillating between liking my material and hating it. I hear other guitarists and singers who impress me, and I go "wait, is my stuff even any good?" Thinking like that is probably dangerous and not very productive.

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't talked about this more, or why I haven't made it known beforehand online where I'll be playing, and the answer is kind of complicated and maybe a little weird. It's not that I wouldn't love to see you out there if you came; in fact, anyone is always invited. I mean that. It's more of a matter of consciously denying myself that security blanket of having an army of friends cheering me on from the crowd by default. Keep in mind several things. One, it's somewhat spontaneous; sometimes I don't even know until that evening where and when I'll go play. Two, I am more likely to meet new people, because I'm alone and awkward and forced to say hi to people. Three, no one I'm sitting with has to feel obligated to tell me it was great even if it wasn't that great. Four, and maybe this is mistaken, but I feel kind of cheap trying twist the arms of friends to come watch me play. I mean, I figure if people want to watch me play, they will do so of their own accord. If none of this makes any sense, just know that it's nothing personal. It's not you, it's me.

III. Jazz

Unfortunately, with playing all these open mics in the last month, I really haven't spent any time on jazz. This isn't necessarily to my liking, but it's the truth. I'm not done with jazz, by any means. Discovering how much I truly love it had an enormous impact on my musical health, and that's not going anywhere. I need to find a way to reincorporate it into my daily life so I can continue making progress. A friend of mine recently let me borrow Wes Montgomery Live in '65. I haven't watched it yet, but it's sitting directly beside me, and I'm really looking forward to it. Every time I hear him play, my brain just goes all asplodey.

I've considered bringing my guitar and amp to an open mic and running through some of the very limited, very beginner stuff I've learned so far. But I just can't convince myself that it's a good idea yet. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right; I don't want to embarrass myself. Jazz has slightly higher standards (no pun intended) than the usual singer/songwriter junk, where it's okay to jangle some G, C & D and let fly with some whiny melodies.

IV. Studio

I've had the pleasure of working two sessions at Queensize Studios since I've been back in Indy. It has been a real treat, and it seems to fill the void that I perceived for so long. It's refreshing to be back in a studio environment, and one that just so happens to have a pretty good reputation for being a great place to go make a record. I haven't really talked this up much online, because it's the kind of thing I didn't want to get bugged about by two dozen people in the event that it fell through, but it hasn't fallen through yet and so far it's bringing me a new level of musical happiness and creative satisfaction.

As a side note, I've mentioned this in conversation with family and very close friends, but I hadn't really discussed it publicly: being highly recommended by my former studio manager down at Echo Park in Bloomington was a seriously validating feeling. It did a hell of a lot to give me a renewed sense of confidence and inspiration. It's entirely possible that I might not even be sitting here today writing this blog if he hadn't done so. That sounded really grim and morbid; I just meant I might not have come back to Indy, and I might not have some or all of this renewed vigor, and I might not even be pursuing music as diligently as I have been. It actually changed my life for the better, combined with the trip to North Dakota, and helped me put into better focus the picture of who I want to be.

V. Love

Nothing to see here. There's really only one person I have felt attracted to since returning to Indy, and I discovered shortly thereafter that she's dating a guy in a band that I am somewhat fond of. I'm not touching that with a 10-foot pole.

When I first got here, I was like "no way, I'm not dating anyone, eff that" because I wanted to devote myself fully to the various pursuits I'm currently engaged in, and they are many in number. But as the days pass, and spring is in bloom, I find myself ensnared by that old wistful feeling. Just last night I walked to a church a few blocks away where I like to lay down on this bit of cement by the stairs that is at just the right combination of angles to be kind of like a recliner; and I was listening to music and watching the stars and there was a moment when I thought to myself how lovely it would be if I had a lovely person to share the experience with. And then the moment passed. I don't really plan to act on it. If anything should come my way, then so be it, but for now I'm just going to continue to fly straight and try to stay productive. (How paradoxical that, as I write that statement, I'm having one of the most unproductive days since I've been here; I mean, that's part of the entire reason I'm even writing this disgustingly long entry.)

VI. Kitties!

Two of my friends (who happen to be dating) have a cat named Rocky, who is a bit less than a year old, by my estimation. This is a fantastic cat. He loves to play outside, like any kitten, but he also spends plenty of time sleeping inside and just being a cuddly little friend in general. That's my kind of cat. Every time I see him, I get all wistful and nostalgic for Fiona. I miss that little kitten. I really came to love it in only a matter of weeks. It was a special bond, but I guess you'll have that when raising a kitten that's only two or three weeks old. I looked at some pictures of her on Facebook yesterday and got kind of sad. I remember walking into the room after having been gone for some time, and she would waddle over as fast as she could on her flat back paws (it took her a few weeks to bend that joint and walk correctly), so excited to see me! Then there was bath time, which usually happened every time I tried to wean her onto solid food, and the resultant nap spent rolled up in my shirt to stay warm: too adorable for words.

I would maybe like to get another kitten someday, but now just doesn't feel like the right time. Granted, it wasn't the right time when I got Fiona, too; but look how that all turned out.

VII. Biking

I need a bicycle. I haven't ridden since October of last year when I used to ride six miles a day, and I miss it. The weather is so gorgeous out, it's the perfect time to be riding. I usually walk a mile or two each day, just around the neighborhood, to clear my head a little when it gets kind of cluttered in there. But I want to get another bike. If you see a decent, street-ready bike on the cheapsies, let me know; otherwise I'm going to hold out for a nice touring bike. I've got plans for trips I'd like to take someday...

Oh, you wonder what those plans entail? Sorry, that's an entry for another day, as I'm not really discussing it publicly. A small handful of people (four or five) know about it, but until I feel like it might actually happen, I'm not really talking about it.

VIII. Sleep

I know there's a phrase about burning the candle from both ends, but sometimes I feel like there are also other ends that don't get talked about, and I'm burning my candle from those ends as well. Or maybe the candle was just put in an oven. Yes, I am baking my candle.

Why iTunes Sucks

I don't keep my dislike of Apple's flagship media software a secret, and now I'm going on the offensive. To those of you who say "why not just NOT use iTunes?", I can't because I have an iPod Touch. And, truthfully, I love the iPod Touch. It's a brilliant device, and I don't want it to just be an expensive, shiny paperweight. I just hate that I have to interface with it using iTunes.

1. "That's no moon; it's a space station."

The download for the most recent version is about 100MB. For comparison, the downloads for the most recent versions of Windows Media Player and Winamp are 25MB and 10MB, respectively. I know we pretty much all have high-speed internet these days, but that is still four to ten times longer download time. If we're talking about two minutes versus ten minutes, that's a pretty significant difference.

2. "He is as clumsy as he is stupid."

This goliath of a program runs like, well, for lack of a better description, a piece of shit. Anytime it's doing anything at all, whether it's syncing my iPod Touch or building up a new round of Genius Mixes, doing anything else becomes a tedious grind. And that's frustrating as hell. Every other media player I use zips along with resiliency, pretty much regardless of what else I'm doing. iTunes also takes two or three times as long to open as either Windows Media Player or Winamp. And when it does open, it usually decides that it wants to do something that consumes more computing resources, and I end up having to wait even longer.

3. "Never his mind on where he was, hm? What he was doing!"

Why is there no equivalent of a "now playing" playlist, something temporary that I can toss songs into at my leisure? Both Windows Media Player and Winamp have this feature; even iPods have On-The-Go Playlists. This is baffling to me. It's also the cause of a great deal of frustration when I'm listening to an album and it finishes and iTunes just automatically starts playing the next one. Yet another example of Apple thinking it knows best, when really it should be leaving control in the user's hands. If I cue up an album in Winamp, and there's nothing else after it in the playlist, it stops playing. Better yet, if I have a few albums or songs queued up in Winamp and I close the program, the next time I open it those same selections are still in the playlist tab, ready for me to continue exploring them where I left off. This 'feature' has been in Winamp pretty much since its inception a decade ago, I believe.

4. "This deal is getting worse all the time!"

Before I acquired my iPod Touch, I used Winamp to put songs on my old iPod. It worked great; I could drag and drop directly from the Windows folder location onto the iPod, and there was even an option to save songs from the iPod onto my computer. But with the iPhone and the iPod Touch (and, I'm guessing, the iPad) Apple has seen fit to change the programming to make this impossible (or, from what I've read online, somewhat possible but prohibitively difficult), so now I'm stuck using iTunes to sync my iPod Touch. The problem is that computers are supposed to be getting simpler, we're supposed to be removing extra steps to move faster and improve productivity. But sync is an added step. It's like pouring your cereal from the box (or bag) into some arbitrary bowl, pouring milk into that bowl, and then pouring the entire mixture into yet another bowl and then sitting down to eat. Now you have to clean two bowls. Why not just eat out of the first bowl you poured into? No wait, it's like if someone else poured every kind of cereal you have into the bowl for you, and then left it up to you to sort out the bits and pieces you wanted to listen to—er, I mean eat.

5. "It's a trap!"

Music purchased on iTunes is DRM-protected. What does that mean? Let's take a look at this excerpt from How FairPlay Works: Apple's iTunes DRM Dilemma.

Prior to buying content from the iTunes Store, a user has to create an account with Apple's servers and then authorize a PC or Mac running iTunes.

During authorization, iTunes creates a globally unique ID number for the computer it is running on, then sends it to Apple's servers, where it is assigned to the user's iTunes account. Five different machines can be authorized.

When a user buys a song from the iTunes Store, a user key is created for the purchased file. The AAC song itself is scrambled using a separate master key, which is then included into the protected AAC song file. The master key is locked using the user key, which is both held by iTunes and also sent to Apple’s servers.

Protected, purchased content is locked within iTunes; songs are not scrambled on Apple's server. This speeds and simplifies the transaction by delegating that work to iTunes on the local computer.

The result is an authorization system that does not require iTunes to verify each song with Apple as it plays. Instead, iTunes maintains a collection of user keys for all the purchased tracks in its library.

To play a protected AAC song, iTunes uses the matching user key to unlock the master key stored within the song file, when is then used to unscramble the song data.

Every time a new track is purchased, a new user key may be created; those keys are all encrypted and stored on the authorized iTunes computer, as well as being copied to Apple's servers.

When a new computer is authorized, it also generates a globally unique ID number for itself and sends it to Apple, which stores it as one of the five authorizations in the user account.

Apple's server sends the newly authorized machine the entire set of user keys for all the tracks purchased under the account, so all authorized systems will be able to play all purchased songs.

Did you stop reading that bit and just skip to this part? That's okay, I didn't even read all of it myself. Know why? Because it's bullshit.

I don't buy music online too often, but when I do, it's at Amazon. Why? Because most of their albums are between $5 and $9.50. Yes, even the most expensive is still generally $0.50 less than iTunes. And some are $3. Oh, and it's all DRM-free. Yes, you just download the MP3s and then do whatever you want with them. Downloading from Amazon looks like this:

Install the Amazon downloader utility, which helps ensure that the stuff you pay for actually ends up on your computer, because it would be sad if it didn't.

Download some music.

Listen to it. Or don't. Add it to your iTunes library, or your Windows Media Player library, or your Winamp library. Or don't add it to any library, just leave it on your computer. Back it up to another hard drive. Send it to your mom. Put it on your iPod, or your Zune, or your whatever.

Easy. These are the reasons that iTunes sucks. Really bad.

Music I'm Enjoying

Here's some of my favorite music at the moment. I'm really enjoying a lush, honest, and organic style right now.

"Things Behind the Sun", Nick Drake, Pink Moon (1972)
Mysterious and serene and beautiful. I struggle to think of anything to describe this that's even worth saying. I'm learning to play/sing this entire album, and I'm currently three songs in.



"Anonanimal", Andrew Bird, Noble Beast (2008)
I want to loop 2:18 to 2:32. Over and over again. I want to hear that sound from the moment I wake up until I fall asleep. His minimalism/ostinato tendencies contrast with the warm, organic sound I mentioned before, but therein lies the appeal to me.



"For Real", Okkervil River, Black Sheep Boy (2005)
I'm reaching back a few years for this one (though not quite as far back as the Nick Drake), but I absolutely adore the delayed accents and syncopations of the chorus. Also, Will Sheff's voice is legit; it's rough and raw and wonderful. I've actually been into this for a bit over two years now, but I felt compelled to include it.



P.S. Buzz users need to click through to the actual post to view embedded videos.

Steppenwolf (Excerpts)

I've just finished reading the first book of those given to me by the kindly stranger in the coffee shop a month ago. It took me a bit longer than I'd have liked, because I became quite busy in the meantime. I chose to read first the one book that my coffee-drinking, Vonnegut-appreciating friend recommended most highly: Steppenwolf. He urged me to read the author's preface (added in a 1960 reprinting) and cautioned me thoroughly against romanticizing the Steppenwolf's persona or lifestyle. I'm preparing in my mind a letter to write in response to him in which I set out to make the point that it's perhaps admissible to sympathize with the character, for all his similarity.

At any rate, as I've taken to doing with all books I read starting in January of this year, I kept a collection of favorite excerpts as I came across them. I began to worry by the third, fourth, or fifth excerpt if I might be better off just writing the entire story down and calling that my excerpt. Every turn of the page found another bit of exquisitely written narrative that left me no choice but to read it multiple times until I'd had my fill of it. There is no unifying element among the excerpts; some are profound, while others simple yet wonderfully written. If you have hopes of someday reading the book and are weary of my unintentionally revealing to you crucial plot points, then be assured that these excerpts do not explicitly reference the plot, although if you are clever enough you could perhaps deduce one thing or another.

A word of praise should also be said for the translator, Basil Creighton. I suppose that a portion of my enjoyment of the story's tone and style could be attributed to his pen, but on the whole I have to admit that at many times I forgot entirely that I was reading a story originally written in German.

(34) And this too was odd: that somewhere in a green valley vines were tended by good, strong fellows and the wine pressed so that here and there in the world, far away, a few disappointed, quietly drinking townsfolk and dispirited Steppenwolves could sip a little heart and courage from their glasses.

(35) Could I be altogether lost when that heavenly little melody had been secretly rooted within me and now put forth its lovely bloom with all its tender hues?

(36) Oh, if I had had a friend at this moment, a friend in an attic room, dreaming by candlelight and with a violin lying ready at his hand! How I should have slipped up to him in his quiet hour, noiselessly climbing the winding stair to take him by surprise, and then with talk and music we should have held heavenly festival through the night!

(58-59) Man is not capable of thought in any high degree, and even the most spiritual and highly cultivated of men habitually sees the world and himself through the lenses of delusive formulas and artless simplifications—and most of all himself. For it appears to be an inborn and imperative need of all men to regard the self as a unit. However often and however grievously this illusion is shattered, it always mends again. The judge who sits over the murderer and looks into his face, and at one moment recognizes all the emotions and potentialities and possibilities of the murderer in his own soul and hears the murderer's voice as his own, is at the next moment one and indivisible as the judge, and scuttles back into the shell of his cultivated self and does his duty and condemns the murderer to death. And if ever the suspicion of their manifold being dawns upon men of unusual powers and of unusually delicate perceptions, so that, as all genius must, they break through the illusion of the unity of the personality and perceive that the self is made up of a bundle of selves, they have only to say so and at once the majority puts them under lock and key, calls science to aid, establishes schizomania and protects humanity from the necessity of hearing the cry of truth from the lips of these unfortunate persons. Why then waste words, why utter a thing that every thinking man accepts as self-evident, when the mere utterance of it is a breach of taste? A man, therefore, who gets so far as making the supposed unity of the self two-fold is already almost a genius, in any case a most exceptional and interesting person. In reality, however, every ego, so far from being a unity is in in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities. It appears to be a necessity as imperative as eating and breathing for everyone to be forced to regard this chaos as a unity and to speak of his ego as though it were a one-fold and clearly detached and fixed phenomenon. Even the best of us shares the delusion.

(65) Man designs for himself a garden with a hundred kinds of trees, a thousands kinds of flowers, a hundred kinds of fruit and vegetables. Suppose, then, that the gardener of this garden knew no other distinction than between edible and inedible, nine-tenths of this garden would be useless to him. He would pull up the most enchanting flowers and hew down the noblest trees and even regard them with a loathing and envious eye. This is what the Steppenwolf does with the thousand flowers of his soul.

(97) Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.

(111-112) But it's a poor fellow who can't take his pleasure without asking other people's permission.

(128) Every day new souls kept springing up beside the host of old ones, making clamorous demands and creating confusion; and now I saw as clearly as in a picture what an illusion my former personality had been.

(143-144) Before all else I learned that these playthings were not mere idle trifles invented by manufacturers and dealers for the purposes of gain. They were, on the contrary, a little or, rather, a big world, authoritative and beautiful, many sided, containing a multiplicity of things all of which had the one and only aim of serving love, refining the senses, giving life to the dead world around us, endowing it in a magical way with new instruments of love, from powder and scent to the dancing show, from ring to cigarette case, from waist-buckle to handbag. This bag was no bag, this purse no purse, flowers no flowers, the fan no fan. All were the plastic material of love, of magic and delight. Each was a messenger, a smuggler, a weapon, a battle cry.

(164-165) As a marionette whose thread the operator has let go for a moment wakes to new life after a brief paralysis of death and coma and once more plays its lively part, so did I at this jerk of the magic thread throw myself with the elasticity and eagerness of youth into the tumult from which I had just retreated in the listlessness and weariness of elderly years. Never did sinner show more haste to get to hell.

Can I Get a Witness?

This evening I was at Locals Only with a few friends. Upon arriving, one of them immediately noticed the collection of art displayed on the wall that was for sale. He commented that he really liked them and appreciated their cartoony quirks. I agreed that they were pretty cool. He mentioned the one that he liked the most, coincidentally the biggest one of the bunch.

He spent the evening debating with himself about whether he should buy a piece. He questioned aloud what we thought the prices would be for original art. I said I had no idea. He asked if they would take card or cash. I said I have no idea. He asked if he bought it, if we thought he could just take it home tonight. I said I have no idea. He did a brief survey of the area and reported back on some of the prices. He declared that the one he wanted was $100; he thought that was a bit too steep.

A bit later he informed me that a smaller piece that resembled it but was in no way as cool was only $50. He said he thought he'd just get that one. He disappeared and returned in a bit with a piece of paper declaring him the proud new owner, and he said that he was supposed to just take it with him when he left.

I asked him why he didn't buy the one he wanted. He said the price was just too much. I told him that he's buying a piece of original, hand-made art that he won't find anywhere else; and he's going to settle for one other than the one that he wanted? He repeated that $100 was just too much for him. I said that he is doing just fine money-wise (he is gainfully employed, more than I can say for myself), and that for him spending $50 or $100 on this art was not a drastic difference when it came to pleasing his aesthetic sense. I said that days, weeks, months, years from now, he won't regret spending the money. He'll be happy that he bought the art that he wanted. I urged him to do exactly what his heart was tellling him; he knew which piece he wanted, but he was going to deny himself of it entirely. I told him that a very powerful thing I had learned over the past year or so was to follow your god damn heart when you should, and to do what you know is right without questioning it. He wanted that art the moment he saw it, and it should not be otherwise.

This went on for several minutes. He said he didn't know if he could since he had already bought the one. I told him there's no way he can't just walk up and say "here's more money, please and thank you". His will was cracking. He was beginning to listen to the voice inside him telling him what he wanted. He begrudgingly agreed to go try, saying "if it'll make you happy." I shouted "no, it will make you happy! That's the whole point!"

He disappeared and came back a few minutes later with a grin on his face and a piece of paper declaring him the proud new owner of the one he fell in love with at first sight. I could tell that he was secretly and very truly, somewhere deep down beyond the reaches of the rational and intellectual recesses of his brain, happy. And those of us who were with him were happy to see him happy! He thanked me for helping him to realize what he should do. I'm glad I did. And I'm glad he did. It was awesome getting him to the point at which he would allow himself to pursue that which would bring him such great happiness.

Bake Sale Bomber

I saw this yesterday on a bumper sticker:

It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.

Now, I am by no means a pro-war kind of person. I don't drive a Hummer around with American flags draped across the windows, drinking PBR, shouting at the top of my lungs about kicking ass and so forth. I'm a pretty peaceful guy, and I believe that the first resort should always be open dialog, not open war.

Still, I think this is an incredibly narrow-minded and naïve thing to say. The person who proudly displays this on his or her bumper apparently doesn't realize that if the Air Force really did have to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber, our entire country would likely be invaded or destroyed. No more schools.

I understand that there is a very real problem with funding for education in America. And I also understand that many people don't always support the militaristic endeavors of the country. But opposing one idea by vehemently and irrationally supporting its logical opposite is not constructive. It's like saying on a blazing hot summer day that you can't stand the heat and wish it were below freezing instead. When it's actually that cold, you'll say you wish it were hot as hell again. Now you've gotten nowhere.

The real solution is somewhere in between. That's the difficult part. But people with bumper stickers like these don't help at all.

Okay, I have to admit that the bumper sticker could mean that this so-called great day comes when the entire notion that a country without a military defense would be invaded or destroyed no longer exists, that some kind of Utopian peace has prevailed. If that's the gist of it, then okay, yeah, that would be a great day. If the bumper sticker is knowingly referencing a completely farcical and highly unlikely situation, then I could almost live with it. It's like saying "hey, wouldn't solid gold toilets for everyone just be great?" Yes, that would be great.

The problem now is that we're touching on a deeper topic, and we start to address things like the necessity of evil. Consider that for all the multitude of kindness and altruism, there will likely always be an element of ill will present in human nature, and it manifests itself in a variety of ways, from someone telling you that you're ugly to armed forces invading countries and purging an entire people. That's evil. For every good soul in a coffee shop who bequeaths fifty of his most beloved books, there is another still who wants to steal them. This evil is prevalent. Without it, how will you know what is truly good?

You can't define or know anything without being cognizant of its logical opposite. What is warm water? It's water that is not cold. What is on? It's the opposite of off. It's the way you understand how delicious an apple tastes or how fun it is to drive a fast car or why sex feels great. You understand these values because you are also aware of their absence. If you were constantly eating apples or driving fast or having sex, you would likely tire of them all.

If there were ever to come a day in which the civilizations of this planet are not engaged in disagreement and war of some kind, it will be far enough in the future that we will have made contact with an alien species (or vice versa) and our entire planet will be united in war against them instead. The reason I can safely make this assumption is based solely on the necessity of evil. There will always be a bad guy, and it will only cease to be us when another option presents itself.

So the Air Force not arming itself makes about as much sense as not locking your doors at night, or leaving your valuables on the front lawn while you're away, or tattooing your Social Security and bank account numbers on your forehead, or leaving your children with complete strangers while you're out in public. Trust in humanity resolutely? Willing to take these risks? Do you think the person with the bumper sticker would?

The solution is somewhere in the middle, and that's the difficult part.

People Who

1. People who buy you a drink (or dinner, or whatever) and then remind you of the fact that you owe them shortly thereafter, probably just before you were about to return the favor.

Come on, at least give me the chance first. Getting reminded of it feels like you sent my secretary an invoice for tax purposes. It cheapens the entire gesture and makes you look like a selfish tool. If it has been like a month, then sure, by all means, remind me.

2. People in cars who intentionally splash walkers and bikers during rainy weather.

You know who you are. You're all going to hell. Seriously. It's about as funny as a punch in the face, which I'll give you the next time I see you.

3. People who say "I'm gonna let you go now" on the phone.

This is such a conveniently simple way to politely condescend; it conveys the perfect mixture of "my time has become too valuable for you" and "I'm trying to come off as humble but I'm actually quite conceited". Anytime I'm told this, I immediately say "I'm gonna let you go." Take that.

If you don't get the condescension that is inherent in this statement, you're probably one of the people who say it.

4. People who say "oh, you didn't want any, did you?"

This is the worst! It's practically synonymous with "this is really good, but I do not want you to have any, because I'm too greedy." It's bad enough to not even offer, but this is even more offensive. Maybe it's the Hobbit within me, but I believe in hospitality between friends. When you stop by to hang with me for a bit at my place, you can feel entitled to more or less anything in the pantry, what little there may be, and there may be very little, like right now; I hope you like oatmeal.

5. People who slow clap when an employee at a restaurant or bar drops and breaks a dish or glass.

As if the poor individual weren't already embarrassed enough! Who elected this person Almighty Destroyer of Souls? If you have a keen eye, you will notice that this douchebag never claps as such when the malady occurs within sight; it's only in the relative safety of anonymity from across the room that he (or she) feels completely free to express his (or her) inner bastard.

Basic Principle of Travel/Stay Proportionality

Postulate

Let t be an amount of time spent traveling to a destination, be it a friend's house or a different city, by any means of transportation (e.g. walking, biking, driving, flying). For travel durations exceeding five minutes, the amount of time (S) spent at the ultimate destination shall be no less than three times the total time spent traveling one-way to said destination:

S ≥ 3t

Derivation

For a traveling/visiting/vacationing experience to be deemed pleasurable, we must ask ourselves if the total time spent moving from one location to another and back to the original location exceeds the total time spent at the new location, and whether this time investment has yielded satisfying returns. Considering the round-trip travel duration (r), logically assumed to be 2t, barring any route or itenerary changes for the return trip, a stay duration also equal to 2t would indicate that exactly as much time was spent seated motionless in a car, for example, as was spent enjoying the sights and sounds of the destination.

 r = 2t

For the traveler's satisfaction in the trip to be sufficiently high enough, half as much again must be spent at the destination, yielding 3/2. This number is known as the Farnhoff-Wickam-Gert Quotient, and it is commonly understood to be the threshold at which travel becomes pleasurable:

3/2r

We resubstitute 2t for r and reduce:

3/2(2t)
3t

It is also understood that any additional time spent at the destination is beneficial; therefore any number that matches or exceeds the Farnhoff-Wickam-Gert Quotient is deemed acceptable.

S ≥ 3t

Practical Applications

1. Walking to your neighbor's house to return a borrowed tool.

If it takes less than five minutes, there is no requirement for the duration of the visit. You may return the borrowed tool and depart at your leisure. But feel free to stay and chat about the weather or compliment your neighbor's lawn.

2. Driving across town to hang out with friends.

If you are driving 10-20 minutes across town, and everyone decides within five minutes of your arrival that the group will be moving to a different location, the trip has not been worth your time. A travel duration of 10 minutes requires at least half an hour of hanging out; 20 minutes of travel requires a minimum of one hour.

3. Driving across the country to visit family or vacation in a new city.

If you drive 12 hours in a car to your destination, you should not spend less than three days there. If you spend three days driving from one coast to the other, you should not spend less than nine days there.

Conclusion

The Basic Principle of Travel/Stay Proportionality is a powerful tool when planning a trip of any kind. Use it wisely, and you can begin to reap the benefits of a pleasurable lifestyle.

Place to Be (Nick Drake)

I learned this song earlier today and I've been playing it almost nonstop; I just can't get enough of it. Pink Moon has quickly soared to the top of my list for all-time favorite albums, and I hope to learn more of it, if not the whole thing (the actual goal). This was the best of five takes; I probably played it twenty times before noon alone and I should have just recorded one of those. Oh well.

When I was young, younger than before
I never saw the truth hanging from the door
And now I'm older, see it face to face
And now I'm older, gotta get up, clean the place

And I was green, greener than the hill
Where flowers grow and the sun shone still
Now I'm darker than the deepest sea
Just hand me down, give me place to be

And I was strong, strong in the sun
I thought I'd see when day was done
Now I'm weaker than the palest blue
Oh so weak in this need for you

Externalization of an Inner Monologue

Here is the most recent song I've finished writing. It's in a very different style for me, but I'm not censoring myself. If something stylistically different comes out, I'll let it. I'm calling this one "Externalization of an Inner Monologue". There are a few minor flubs, but it was the best of five takes, and that's all I'm good for right now.

God damn her for finding me
I thought that I was finally free
I thought that there would be no second chance
But no amount of miles could ever be
Enough to try and put between
A lover and the love he never even had

It's bad enough to look for love
With no hope of ever being a part
Of the kind you write songs about
With the hope of breaking somebody's heart

I should have known not to trust
Myself or anyone that I know
I've already gone too far
No amount of careful advice
Can lead to love or save someone's life
If he's not looking and doesn't want to be found

There's no such thing as honesty
Or not the kind that I was hoping to find
It takes a while to get it through
To know they're finally listening to you

I wrote this song behind the wheel
Of a grave made of two tons of steel
But I'm sleeping now in a concrete bed
And I can't tell if this is even real

It's bad enough to look for love
With no hope of ever playing the part
In the kind you wrote songs about
But there's still hope of breaking some poor girl's heart

So god damn you for finding me

This is an April Fools' Day joke

This entire post is a joke; it is being written in observation of April Fools' Day. Do not believe anything contained within.

Today is April 1, the day of merry pranks and jokes. To that end, I am posting this in the hopes of catching some of you unawares. A portion of you will read this and know that it is all a prank; you will have likely also read pranks and jokes on other websites. But chances are high that a majority of you will read through this entire post and not realize the irony or humor contained within, and you may even tell a few friends about it before you realize the error of your ways. At that point, you may feel slightly embarrassed. Don't worry, it's all in the nature of the joke.

I can't take all the credit for catching you unawares. I had ample help preparing for this deception. Several of my closest friends were indispensable in the labyrinthine planning stages of this elaborate spoof. We spent hours going over the details, and now that you have been sufficiently taken for a ride, I can safely admit their involvement. If some of you feel cheated or deceived, please take your frustrations out on me and not them, as they were kept mostly in the dark about the eventual purpose of their machinations.

To those who may suppose that posting such a farcical tale of whimsy as this would perhaps discredit future writings of a more serious nature, you need not worry. I assure you that this preposterous and comedic anecdote is the only one of its kind.

The Tale of the Bat

It has recently come to my attention that a great multitude of people, friends inclusive, have never heard this timeless tale told in full. I now present the entire story of the bat, as it was recorded in the days of old, with a few minor edits for clarity.

The Tale of the Bat or:
How the Entire World Was Saved In The Span of 15 Minutes

1. Of the Coming of The Beast

This is the tale of how a peaceful, rocking household was once disrupted by the most malicious and evil of all creatures. It begins as a summer day is drawing to a close, when the air is yet warm and thick. The heroes of our story are those of the band Jonas, though you will come to know them by name.

In the beginning, there was Greg, who dwelt in his private bedchambers in the Realm of Jonas. Ere he slept, he was troubled by an unseen spectre in the cloudiness of that which rocking guitar players dream of. Startled, he awoke in a sweat, and made his way clumsily in the dark, for he purposed to relieve himself in his gilded washroom.

But he did not wholly come to his destination, for along his path he descried from afar the flutterings of a winged creature of foul design. Quickly it darted to and fro, hither and thither, this way and that. Then it seemed to Greg that this creature was not like to anything he had thus seen in his realm:

Black as night it was, and colder still; its eyes were diminutive lamps, far off in the murky dusk. Swiftly it moved across the kitchen, for that is where it had been making its hiding, and perched confidently upon the water tap, and the gleaming silver was cast in a deepening twilight.

Cautiously, Greg moved closer to investigate the unwanted visitor. At this the beast reared its ugly shape and called out in a manner of song most unpleasant to those within earshot. Thus with great speed Greg passed out of that domain and sought the help of friend and ally.

2. Of the Mustering of Men

Far off in another land, the lore of which this tale does not concern, Drew rested upon his mighty throne and there sat, as one in thought, and did not move for many an hour. An open book lay upon his lap and, but for the gleam in his eye, he could have been mistaken for one who had fallen unwittingly to slumber. But he was not asleep, and he heard far off cries as of one in dire need of service, for hearty was the voice of Greg, and far did it travel in time of need.

Now with great haste he went to meet his ally of old at the entry of his realm. It seemed to Drew that Greg was clothed in a shadow of himself, stricken with madness at the sight of some horror unknown. Thus spoke Greg:

"Holy shit," said he, "there is a bat in the kitchen."

And Drew was troubled. Long he thought and spoke not a word, and ere the sun retired beyond the western horizon he broke his silence. "Let's get Dan!" he cried, and swiftly they rode beyond the wooded hills to the very ends of the earth, whereupon they rested for a time.

When the day was again fresh, Greg and Drew made entry into the halls of Sir Dan of Yore, wisest of loremasters. His lands are forever chill to the skin of men, and upon his throne they spied him wrapped about in many layers of cloth and raiment.

"Old friends, what brings you to far away lands in such dark times as these?" The voice of Dan seemed not his own, but as of one who has lost countless years to the unavailing cold of night.

"We come seeking your favour," answered Greg. "We seek counsel and aide." He bowed low and offered words of respect.

"Yes, I know. A great deal I have already seen in this matter, and yet more still there is that remains unknown to even those who know very much. I will aide you in your quest." Greg and Drew were comforted at receiving this news and their hearts were glad. Dan continued:

"But we three alone do not possess such mortal power and strength as shall be required to accomplish the task. Indeed, no man alone can slay this creature by swift blade or keen wit. We must seek good fortune in a man whose name is remembered by no one save the eldest, but who is called Brian in our speech."

"You speak wisdom and truth," declared Drew. "But few have seen or received word of Brian since this dark age began. His land is far and unreachable by foot or by sail."

"Then we must carry on with what strength we do have," said Greg. "What we lack in numbers we must make up for in skill and cunning."

They spoke no more of the matter but stayed in Dan's realm for a brief while, and when they were again of hearty mind and body they departed.

3. Of the Quest of Jonas

The journey across many lands unknown was long and difficult. The supply of food they had rationed for the trip diminished with each passing day. Little life there was, and less water. Occasionally a meal was made of root or blossom and the sap of a young tree not yet stained by the muddy, ageless skies.

"The lands are crying out," uttered Dan. "We are near to the creature." Indeed then, as if by fate, the woods about them grew silent. The air grew dense in anticipation. Nearby a bush rustled, disturbing the tense calm about the land.

"Show yourself, thing of evil, for you make enough sound that I should slay you swiftly with naught the sight of you!" cried Drew into the unavailing silence. There came a laughter, hearty and merry.

"You should be so lucky to have a swing at me at all." Out from behind a tree stepped Brian. The others surrounded him joyfully, and they embraced, and were comforted.

"What good fortune brings you hither into our travels, friend?" asked Dan.

"I have come by news of ill tidings in these parts," answered Brian. "They speak of a lingering darkness, one which circles round in the night, first high and then lower, until even the haughty man is stricken with fear, and he of lesser stature flees in shame."

"Your words ring true, for I have seen this thing with my own eyes." Greg seemed to diminish and his voice was but a whisper in the vastness of the desolate land.

"What hope have we in such dark times?" Drew wondered aloud. "Such devilry as this cannot be matched by mortal means. Perhaps we have come to the end of our days."

"You speak as one who is already defeated," declared Brian. "It is perhaps then because fear has clouded your judgement. Who indeed can withstand the might of this terrible bane? No man can contest its wicked strength, yet look not past strength in bonds of friendship forged long ago. You may find some courage unknown, some hope renewed. We go now not on any simple errand, but on a journey of pain and struggle. The despair of one shall be the doom of all; let he who doubts the power of Jonas go no further!"

At this, the Company set out into the deepening night with heavy hearts.

4. Of the Capture of the Beast

It was not long before all store of rations had been consumed. Exhaustion and fatigue caused much delay. "We must have a bit of a break," said Drew, "or I should not live to see the light of another day."

"To call this 'day' would seem a jest," replied Dan. Indeed the skies had grown ever darker as the days passed. The Company had taken to resting at any time, day or night, for day had become a shadow of doubt and night was illuminated in a glow of fear, so that the hours passed in an unrelenting cycle.

In a small clearing of grass surrounded by a field of twig and thatch, and near to a small pool of still water, they rested upon what blankets and cloth they had brought. There was little talk as each weary traveler drifted into uneasy slumber. The dark air creeped closer about them on all sides. They did not sleep long ere all were awoken in a startled fit. The wind was sighing in high whispers, rhythmically pulsing like the gentle droll of the sea. All were silent as the sound grew more intense, until it seemed to each that it came from within their very minds.

There came then a call, which reached out across the skies like deathly cold fingers. The festering beast took wing, and it appeared as though a veil had been drawn about the heavens. A great shadow rolled over the Party, and despair came upon them like a plague. They were quickly scattered as the bat darted among their camp. It reared its hideous muzzle and pierced their minds with merciless eyes.

Now separated by a shout's distance, each drew his weapon and swung blindly in fear at the enemy. Guided by some force unknown, Drew's worthy blade found its way deep into the flesh of the winged creature. The bat cried out in rage but did not halt in its course, borne upon the wind. The hilt of Drew's blade grew very hot then, and he cursed its name:

"O, cruel device! Such heat as I never have known! Such doom be the bane of the Moonpie!"

Dan spied Drew from nearby in his agony. "Drew, release your weapon!" he cried, but his words were of no use. Drew was crouched upon the ground, holding the blade to his chest. The smell of burning flesh permeated the air.

"No," he said slowly. "This blade is mine, and I will do with it as I please. I will wield it until the end of time, until all the earth is grown old and dead! I can never let it go!" His head lolled and his eyes clouded over; his voice continued wearily: "I can never understand...just why...just why we tried..."

On a sudden Greg appeared behind Drew and struck a blow to his forearm. The sword fell from Drew's burning hand and scorched the ground below. Brian kicked the fiery weapon into the shallow pool of water; a light smoke hung in the air. Drew looked about confused. "I am sorry," he said. "I was altogether not myself for a moment."

"Indeed you were not," replied Dan. "But now is not the time for explanations. The winged enemy returns!" Together they spun and faced the looming evil.

"Clearly we cannot hope to defeat this thing with even the sharpest blade, such as we have," spoke Brian. He stooped over his pack and removed from it a broad cloak. "Let each man take firm hold of one corner."

And so the bat raced towards them, cackling and screeching in a wretched tongue. Its fiery eyes pierced each of their minds, one by one, and cast into them visions of agony and death, but the men of Jonas held fast. When the bat was near, they raised up the cloak and, billowing in the wind, it cast a great shadow upon the bat. Swiftly they brought the corners round and drew them tight about the bat.

"Alas!" shouted Greg. "The deed is done." He held the cloak aloft and each man of Jonas tied about it a length of rope. "The earth shall have grown old indeed ere these bonds are broken."

They gathered what was left of their belongings scattered throughout the clearing and departed that dark realm.

5. Of the Journey Home

The next day dawned fair and sweet. The pallid greys of winter were rolled back to reveal a joyous song of colour and light. High above the sun smiled upon all the lands, and a new season was begun. The men of Jonas walked at ease through fields and woods and pastures and hills. They came at last to the Realm of Jonas.

"O, fair Paddington!" cried Drew and he fell to his knees and wept. The House of Jonas stood tall and mighty, unsoiled by the chill of winter. They entered into the great halls and there came the sound of laughter and merrymaking; it was a feast, a celebration.

"Hark to the sounds of fair voices and singing, such as I have not heard for an age," said Brian as they walked. They were greeted by a large host of friends and neighbours, and such a multitude had never been gathered before nor was seen thereafter.

After many old friendships were revisited, all were seated round the table and enjoyed a great feast while the men of Jonas recounted their tale. Some of the youngest grew frightened yet listened on in curiosity. The day grew long and many bottles of the finest draught were emptied ere the story was told, and not the smallest detail was omitted.

"Alas that such dark times as these should befall us all," said one. "Ah, but for the strength of Jonas we should have been nothing but shadows in our fear," spoke another. A silence fell over the room.

"Then we shall drink to good health!" said Greg after a moment. A shout went up and many glasses were drained. The singing and laughter resumed again.

"It is quite a miracle that we are all of good health indeed!" shouted Dan, and there was another cheer. But Drew did not share in the excitement, though none was the wiser in all the commotion. He looked down at the palm of his hand and for a moment he felt again the pain of fire stretching across his skin. He looked up and saw that Dan had noticed. "Or at least, mostly good health," he said to Drew beneath the roar of the party.

"No, I do not suppose I shall ever be quite the same again," replied Drew. "I can still feel the terrible gaze of the bat from within when I close my eyes. But as much as things have changed, I believe there are some things that shall never change."

And in time the many visitors made their departure, and the House of Jonas carried on much the same as ever before. It was not long ere that realm was once again filled with the joyous sounds of a rocking band comprised of four alpha male specimens, the likes of which no woman has not swooned upon.

Here ends the Tale of the Bat.