I keep forgetting what I need to download.. every time I find myself with internet access… not this time.. this time I’ve made a list!!!

Mostly it’s a part of “Project Unearthed Arcana” which is a process via which.. I’ve gone through old boxes.. packed.. I think.. from the apartment I was living in in the end of my college experience.. when I moved back in with the folks..

One of the mysterious missing items.. besides a bunch of photos and slides documenting various portfolio work, and a couple guitar peddles (one of which I’ve found) has been a large cache of guitar magazines.. complete with transcriptions…

Those were the days I took the guitar seriously.. but even so.. and even as I had this large library of magazines and transicriptions.. I never found the motivations to learn any actual songs.. with about 3 execeptions.. I supposed it didn’t help that most of the music I was into was particularly challenging and.. I was more interested in writing songs that performing them…

But now I find myself in a strange situation where.. I’m putting new amounts of seriousness into my guitar stuff.. and as a part of that.. I’m thinking.. I should start learning some covers… and as a part of this.. these are the songs I was thinking of downloading from youtube…

Mind you.. in many cases this has more  to do with what I could find in the magazines then my taste or judgement:

(also, do be so kind as to excuse the spelling issue)

Zep

• Song remains the same
• rambling on

Jimi

• Purpose Haze
• Manic Depression
• Machine gun

Jeff Beck

Where were you

megadeth

peace sells

Ministry

Jesus built my hot rod

Beatles

• Day tripper
• Backbird
• Birthday

Stevie Ray VAn

Texas Flood

George Thorogood

Bad to the bone

Creedence clearwater revival

green river

Black Sabbath

into the void

Iron Maiden

Number of the Beast

Doors

Roadhouse Blues

Steppenwolf 

Born to be wild

White Snake

Still of the NIght

Michael Jackson

Beat it

ArrowSmith

Train Kept a rollin’

Ted Nugent

cat scratch feaver

Of course the other idea was to do a Mash up of Ice-T’s Power with a bit of Michele Foucault lectures… err, some examples:

and

I don’t know how much of this I’ve been posting on.. so let me start off with a quick overview:

I decided I needed to build a new website as a part of getting a business going.. for my art and music and whatever. A normal part of this kind work is to go and do a “content audit” for what might go in the site. I was thinking mostly along the lines of images.. nothing else really… but as I started digging through older work and playing around.. I began to get hit with something.

There is a project “I’m supposed to do.” It’s like something in your unconscious going “yo, shit head, remember me? Remember how we were going to go do this and take over the world? Well dude, it’s time, I’m here, are you ready?”

An odd think for your unconscious to tell you no doubt.

What I’ve discovered is work going all the way back to when I was in high school. Some of what I’m finding is massively fascinating to me.. I’m seeing who I was “way back when.” There are stories we sometimes tell about these old times.. but in looking through this stuff it’s like.. an encounter with the psychological reality of the those days. It’s not really a nostalgia trip…. put that way.

What I’m seeing is someone who’s.. intensely damaged… a kind of bloody pulp of a human being.. who probably really just wants to heal.. but is so far down in some pit of hell.. that that’s just not possible..

There’s different sides I’m seeing… one side is this kind of constructive.. intellectual, artistic, musical, whatever-a-cle.. part of me.. who is always working for my over all betterment.. and then there’s another part I see.. which is very child like.. playing around with concepts and ideas in all of these novel ways. It’s probably mostly Freud and Jung.. and I can see my… battle.. with my times.. with the world.. emotionally, intellectually, psychologically… it’s nieve in places…

It’s funny really.. there was a whole lot of stuff I was trying to articulate.. about the structure of human society.. years latter I would run into Foucault.. a french philosopher who died in the 80s from AIDS… but what he was saying.. in a much more articulate kind of form.. is very much like what I was trying to say in some of these earlier days.

In a way it’s almost like “letters from the womb.” It’s like your in some sense still in the womb.. and the womb is killing you..

Incredible levels of frustration..

And there’s this whole part of it.. that’s like.. not really understanding life at all..

And there’s a way that all the armor and defenses become a protection against life.

Well what I want to do is tell a story… maybe many stories.. and its like going into this old unearthed arcana.. is bringing that story to life for me….

I don’t know how I’m going to tell the story… or even what the story is.. It’s just that I have this giant cache to work with.

I have notebooks that stand as high as your knees.. dating back to high school I think… and I found a few high school sketchbooks… I got this stack of CD ROMs and DVD ROMS… which I can hopefully recover work form… there’s all kinds of shit in my computer.. I found a tun of video tape… I didn’t even know I had.

An excavation project.. of all this work.. is a fucking mammoth project… onto its self.. and.. I’m not sure if that’s the rabbit hole I’m looking for.

Curation:

You can tell any story you want… with the facts.. how you organize the facts.. how you frame it… why you select one thing and not another.. so the curation process is one that sorta alters reality.. but also it must be said.. that what is there.. what got written down.. or whatever.. it’s self is selective..

I guess what I’m trying to do now.. is get to know this former me.. who is a part of me somewhere inside.. to try and help me understand who I am.. where I came from.. how I got here.. and see what kind of insight this might give for going forward.

I look at this former me and I think “Jesus, this dude just needed someone to love him.” In a huge way.. that’s what it all comes down to.

My parents loved me but they didn’t accept me, so the me they didn’t accept was not loved.. and it seemed like no part of the world could accept me.. the whole of me. And there was like this giant obstacle in my path.. which was partly a product of my parents control, partly a product of the way the world works, I’d argue partly what is wrong with the world.. so a kind of systemic shadow / evil side of our world.. and part of it.. a huge part.. was the kind of psychological and emotional damage that had already been done.. all of this was the obstacle.

And it’s an obstacle that is still in front of me today.

Lets talk a little about where I’m at today.

So there’s the stuff that I may repeat more then I need to.. how right now I’m living on $60 a week + food stamps, and I don’t pay to live here.. or the electricity.. at least not at the moment..

I feel intensely lonely and isolated.. and it still feels like.. there’s not really anyone I’m terribly intimate with..

There was a women I met on the internet.. and we were a kind of internet thing, if you will.. with the idea that she’d come up here one day.. and hopefully that day would be.. well probably within a year.. but that never seemed enough to me.. that having someone who lives in some other state.. isn’t good enough.. and who knows what you find when you finally meet.. accept that we’d been talking for years… but now I haven’t heard from her for quite a while.. well.. there’s madness in her world.. shit that’s awful to try and deal with.. I don’t know how bad it is.

But even with her.. well.. she probably knows me better then anyone… accept she doesn’t really know what I’m going through on a day to day basis.. or about a lot of the pain I feel… etc, etc, etc…. and not to mention I haven’t heard from her for a long while now…

There’s a number of people in my world that I call friends.. but various forces ether keep me from seeing them too often, or… I just don’t hang out with them all that often…

But the obstacle.. it’s almost like what I really need is some big hug, and to be told it’s all going to work and and be ok.. and to have some guidance along the way.. towards doing whatever it is I think I need to be doing.. and I need some being taken care of…. I think that would get me through it.

So maybe that should be my over riding objective in life

Like.. ok.. create a supportive network around your self..

A few latter:

Back to the subject of the project:

So… looking at all this stuff there’s still the question of “what’s the story I want to tell.” I think there’s the epistemological and ontological aesthetic issues of art which..

There’s what story you want to tell and when do you what to tell it, or perhaps even where you want to tell it.

As I see it there’s a kind of.. mythological philosophy at the center… which makes me think quite a bit of Sun Ra… and what I’m thinking is.. I would like, very much, to sample directly from what I’m able to find in these note books.. for the telling of that story…. and to sample from the old art… even when the old art is terrible amateurish.. stuff.. It may still be in some ways be expressive.. of something… that has something to do with the story to tell.

So the philosophy mythology…

Well I’ll tell you what’s running through my head.. this feeling of being lost in the world of imagination.. and not knowing the difference between that and empirical reality.. as being a part of the psychological.. issue…

So the philosophy mythology may be… a kind of expression of psychosis. I mean it might be “welcome to my delusional world.”

I had this weird conversation with my therapist about something similar to this, in my last session.. which she said had to do with why people don’t want to share there journals.. like that this might be a part of my blogging.. why I write so much and post so little… like I don’t want to show you certain things.. like where I fear I might be too egotistical or too this, too that… and I mean.. it doesn’t seem like I’m censoring that much, does it?

But there is this underlying fear of delusionalism.. that’s been a major thing for a while. It’s the.. not knowing what of what you believe is true and what is not.. and that what you have to do is differentiate between the two… and then belief it’s self.. why do you believe x versus y… what is the roll of the fictions.. what is use value of belief..

All of this is sorta putting your self on the operating table.. and as Nietzsche would say.. beware of throwing out your demons less you throw out the best thing you have in you.

Still.. you want to make these kinds of differentiations.. if you need a weight baring structure to stand on.

Or maybe.. you simply must rely on faith?

So………….

As I said recently, in something I don’t think I posted… I need to look at the bigger picture before I can really start.. I need to have that idea of what it is I need to do..

So…. here’s what I’m thinking right now….

I have been messing around with these.. there almost like mood boards… which is a conventional part of the web design process.. it’s a bit like.. defining the visual identity of the site.. accept that these aren’t really done with the idea that they are mood boards… they’re half way… well maybe less then that.. to page mock ups.

Ok.. lets talk about a kind of manifesto idea I have for the web design aspect of these projects.

I’ve been hanging out in book stores.. going through the art and design sections.. looking at work…. and doing this has brought me to a number of conclusions.

1. The web SUCKS. HTML5 and CSS3 are rubbish… just in terms of the limitations they impose on design.
2. The web SUCKS.. from the issues of navigation, usability, strategic objectives.. whatever, whatever, whatever.. all of this impacts design… and makes it.. well, what i is…..

Ok.. I’m a fucking artist… right? Like.. visual, musical, conceptual, philosophical, whatever-a-cal… So.. the idea that the site would emphasis these things over conventional strategic / whatever stuff.. I think makes a good deal of sense.

So in a way… what I want to do is create bad web design.

I’ve had this idea for ages.. that you would create a site where there was this surface layer that operated from a very strategic level.. and then beneath that were the depths.. on the surface layer.. the site would function as a site should.. and it would suffer from the usual things web sites suffer from…

But then there would be the depths..

The surface structure of the site is pretty freaking simple….

A few latter:

Well.. I gotta get a move on on things… so I guess I’ll leave it here…

But just to say one of the things I’m searching for is visual impact.

And the internet isn’t good.. I’m downloading some podcasts.. and not remembering what it was I was supposed to be downloading… or researching, or whatever… but I don’t really feel like doing much of any of that.. and i think that’s just cause.. well an effect of sitting in this parking lot.

I think I need to find some place to go get exercise

Maybe I should just go to the grocery store.. spend unwisely.. go home, and recharge my battery and come back latter?

latter:

Yeah, thats what I think i’m going to do, I can hack this parking lot much longer!

I’ve.. for.. I don’t know how long now.. a week and a half maybe.. been working on writing this song..

Unlike how I normally work, this song is being written on the guitar. Normally, the way I write, I program instrument performances into a sequencer, and work on a mix.. starting from measure one and working through till the end of the piece.. usually with no idea where it will take me a long the way….

But with guitar… I have to work on ideas.. and then work on the performance of the idea till I get it to such a place that my performance is ready to be recorded… that the results will be good enough to say “ok, so the guitar does this here” and I have a reasonably accurate representation of what it should be.. so that I can then work on the other parts or move forward…

So.. the going takes a whole heck of a lot longer.. that’s maybe point 1… point 2 is probably that.. the way I normally write music.. I don’t really think of as song writing…. and so I’m sitting here wondering if what I’m is song writing at all.

There’s other things to.. like how I think on guitar is different from how I think in a sequencer. In a sequencer.. as with any software, there’s the influence of the software on how you create whatever it is you’re creating: what is easier or more difficult in the software.. .you have x energy to give it.. so you tend to put your energy where you’ll get the most results.. (what is easier) thus… software’s influence on the results.

When I’m playing the guitar.. the issue is my abilities as a guitarist.. what’s easy or difficult for me.. and how that might influence me…  accept that I have issues.. and so insist on doing things that are difficult for myself….  but none the less.. my abilities as a guitarist has a huge influence on my writing.

In any event, the effect of the slowness of your progress results in a kind of raising the level of detail you work at.. or something like that…

The song I’m working on now.. is madness

It starts off in 9/8, goes along with that for about 8 measures, then its 2 measures of good old fashion 4/4… then 2 measures of 7/8…. and i’m not really sure of the meter after that…

In fact.. I’m not even sure about that 7/8 bit.. I think its more like my performance is just that far off the beat… that it ends up fitting into the space of 7/8 but its probably supposed to be 4/4… and maybe some of the issue here is that.. I’m playing to a grid.. as a pose to playing by feel.. and maybe there’s supposed to be a tempo change or something…

Besides the meter madness there’s the matter of harmonic / chord madness… the chord progression.. changes depending on what level of proximity you are looking at..  so that there’s different ways you could interpret the progression.. which is kinda strange…

Basically.. its all in this one chord: E minor.. accept that.. well it’s CMaj7, C# Diminished.. there’s all kinds of modalism going on…  and then there’s a few other chords… and its evolving this way and that.. and then finally..  some where beyond what I’ve totally worked out… we move to A minor.. maybe…

And is this madness a song?

I was thinking.. that all I’ve described up until this point… which is about 35 seconds worth recorded material.. and then I’m not sure how long the not totally worked out material will be… was all intro….. but I’m not really sure that it works…  like I think there needs to be something more… like say a vocal that comes in part way through this..

And whatever the hell you want to say about it… it ain’t no verse chorus verse bridge chorus solo whatever outro thing… I mean it’s structure doesn’t fit into any of that… at least not at this point.. at this point it’s just a constant introduction of new material, new ideas… you can sorta listen to it as an evolution of some ideas… which again speaks to that “it depends on your proximity from it.. you’ll hear different structural ideas”…..

Maybe all that is cool…

Speculation on what kind of a song it is / what its about

I think it’s a love song.. a very dark and creepy love song… or maybe its not dark and creepy.. and maybe its not a love song.. or like.. not a romantic love song anyway… I mean.. its definitely dark.. and full of pain… and torment..  and if its creepy its because the torment of the soul.. that we feel.. makes you think “dude, is this guy a serial killer or something?”

Maybe what it is.. is a love song sung by a broken person…..  You know.. we are all broken people… really… but maybe this is a song that’s emphasizing the broken-ness…

It’s very autobiographical.. it seems to me.

When it comes to matters of love.. I feel a very acute sense of… a barrier between myself and love realized… where you gotta be willing to walk on fire.. and then have a certain amount of luck.. and like.. do battle with whatever the demon is.. and actually win that battle.. and the chances are probably stacked against you… kinda thing.. in order to realize said love.

So, in a way.. its incredibly sad and tragic.. as a portrait.. of.. lets say a situation.. or a feeling.. or whatever.

But it’s also incredibly beautiful…. because of how heroic it is. I mean.. we are all damaged people.. ok.. but how many of us.. in our adventures of love, sex, and procreation… walk through all the fires of there broken-ness… in quest of love? Another words.. as you’re getting to know someone.. well.. lets say that conventionally there’s lots of surprises that happen after the marriage……..  but that actually has more to do with the kind of psychological projection that happens as a result of falling in love… then what we hide.. or maybe what we hide is a part of it?

And… the idea of love I’m running with.. is one of a love that is transcendent… is an earthly manifestation of the divine.. which is to say.. a very troubadour / knights of the round table.. notion of romantic love….  And in this kind of love.. in order to find this kind of love.. you had to be willing to risk eternal damnation… in fact Dante.. who writes, you might say, the definitive tale of heaven and hell.. puts Tristan and Isolt.. which would be the folks risking eternal damnation… in hell.

Well.. this is theologically complex grounds.. philosophically as well…

But as I say.. I’m not even sure that it’s a song about a romantic love.. It could be agope?

Perhaps its a song about my social anxiety? The barriers between myself an intimacy? …any sort of intimacy…

Well I don’t know.. it doesn’t actually have any lyrics yet, just a few lyrical ideas.. if they are even formed enough to merit the attribution of “lyrical ideas.”

On the subject of the going

As I say I’ve been working on it for about a weak and a half.. and its getting into the sorta place where I find myself working… well.. more and more on my guitar playing.. 3+ hours a day anyway.  That is that much time spent on the guitar…  and that time is spent ether working on performing ideas I’ve already sorta finalized, searching for entirely new ideas, working out other ideas.. or other stuff entirely.

Ideally.. I’d like to really raise the number of hours a day.. but at a certain point that limits how much time I can spend doing other things.. and can quickly become unsustainable.. So.. somewhere along the line I gotta figure out.. let say “my existential relationship to the concept of priorities.”

(At this point, the “getting things done” time management people.. are not thinking to highly of me)

There’s something about having a battery that’s going to die soon that always seems to motivate me to make a post…  Maybe it’s cause it keeps me from making super long epic unreadable posts? Something anyway..

So new news of anything?

A pay check came recently, or I found it in the mail box late last night.. which I meant to take with me to cash.. but forgot.. fortunately I’m not far from the house.. but.. figures the main thing for me to do I forget.

Its been a few day’s since I’ve accessed the internet.. been in something of a depressed mood… But I’m not sold on the idea that the depressed mood is a bad thing.. all though it is something to take note of.. considering the meds I’m on for depression… that I’m having these moods not un-regularly.

What I’m kinda feeling at the moment is.. mental health for me is going to require me to go through painful stuff inside me.. so I’m not entirely looking forward to it.

Hmm.. what else worthing talking about?

I’m working on some new guitar based music.. kinda excited about it.. started out with just wanted to explore Guitar Rig 5.. which is a part of Komplete 8.. to kinda see what it has to offer.. it is fairly epic.. or feels that way.. as I go through the presets and what not… and I was able to crafts some tones that seemed to make sense for what I was doing…

I’m still in the camp of not really liking amp modeling so much… I mean.. there’s a lot that can be said for it.. but even my simple amp with no effects.. there’s really a lot to be said for that.

In other news I’m continuing the process of pouring HMTL5 stuff into my head.. some of it’s sticking.. Some of it is.. becoming stuff I’m just sorta remembering cause I’m told it so often in all the content I consume relative to web design…

Anyway.. time to dad-a-lee-skip on out of here.. get that pay check.. and take a trip to the library..

The strangest of these things is a looming sense that sanity could strike any moment.. and I could end up joining the human race… Oh.. I dramatize… the danger is probably not all that bad but.. ok, yeah.. its a little bad.

Ever since I was like “Yeah, I’m scared shitless about this life stuff that I’m so ill-prepared for” I’ve found that.. there’s been this growing sense of “ok-ness” as I do those basic things I ought to do to, like.. survive and…

Ok.. case in point.. today I did a bad thing, I went to a movie.. the Avengers.. not too shabby a movie. It was a bad thing cause I can’t afford it. Actually.. it was shortly after I arrived at a show last night.. and found there was a cover charge.. that I was over my alloted spending for the week..

Well ok.. lets be honest.. that’s a lot of creative accounting.. I had spent too much way before then.. but…

But I decided I would reward myself today.. and seeing as it’s Sunday, I figured I could argue that it’s really “next week.”

And why would I reward myself?

#1 I have not had a smoke today or yesterday. That’s probably a kind a big deal… I still have a good supply of drugs to help me quite.. but.. it looks like I ought to be able to kick it.. though I confess I have a partial smoke, I found in the car, on the back seat.. though I haven’t smoked it.

#2 Ok.. so if you know me.. this will come as a jaw dropping shock.. I cleaned out my car today… I also cleaned the house of returnable can-age.. and a certain amount of trash.

Ok.. so none of that really seems like much.. but.. the very fact that there’s all kinds of silverware is in a draw.. and the sink.. is like.. not as bad as it was… that is to say that this is a part of an over all trend.. of.. hope?

I must say I’m craving that smoke.

The feeling is one of…  When my Mom died.. it was like an epically traumatic event..  that along with trying to take care of my dad.. and the state getting involved.. ending up on disability… and then this business of dealing with being so dirt ass poor…

Err… when my Mom died there were a lot of things that.. were like.. things I wasn’t used to doing.. hadn’t done before.. somehow had an emotional pain associated with doing them.. connected to the loss of my mom…

Like really basic things like.. cooking, or going to a grocery store and buying food… or like.. bringing in the mail.. or like.. using a phone or like.. were all like difficult for me..

I know.. madness…

Anyway.. so it seems like.. I feel like there’s some level of “recovery” going on now.. and maybe I can pick myself up and become functional sometime soon…

Imagine that?

But it really does feel that way..

Which somewhat reminds me of a dream I had.. I think last night.. in the dream my Dad dies.. and he’s somehow covered up in the bed.. and somehow.. I guess with my mom.. we are traveling back and forth to where her family is from in upstate NY… with my Dad’s body.. we might be trying to keep him from dying.. I don’t quite remember.

I’m on medication that makes my dreams crazy mind you..

I have a lot of dreams where my Dad dies and my Mom is still alive.. I guess I don’t really remember too much of it.. but the look of my dad’s corpse.. it was somewhat cartoon-e-esk.. and somehow deflated.. almost like.. we had mummified him, and then a whole long time after words.. unwrapped the linens form his body.

I don’t really know what the connection is there.. just that the dreams seem to intertwine with this very strange feeling of sanity creeping up on me.

Anyway…