Month: January 2007

Ran across an interesting entry over on wired: “I Survived My Internet Vacation. The interesting thing I found out, trying a similar experiment back in December? Real-life stuff falls apart because I wasn’t spending time online, and other real-life stuff comes together because of it.

What’s the longest stretch you’ve gone without access to email or the web in the past two years? One week was my limit, last month.

Today…

**sniffle**

…we gather here to commemorate the passing of friends. Stalwart friends. Friends who have become more to us than simply music gear. These represent the finest of gigs and the finest of memories. And now they are leaving us to pass on to finer pastures.

Please set your yester-year recall machine to 1990, when Billy Joel showcased the release of the Korg T1 by featuring this magnificent keyboard on his Stormfront tour. The keyboard really took the musical industry forward by combining the best of sample sounds and programming in what was dubbed a ‘musical workstation.’ Oh, it was a beauty. And I, a young high school junior, was first mesmerized when Ben and I went to see the tour at the Caps Center and sat close enough to see Billy Joel play ‘Pressure’ on the T1 no more than 50 feet away from our seats.

The next summer was a lot of hard work, saving up lawn mowing money to pay for my share of the $4K Korg T1. In addition to my own savings, I was counting on graduation gifts from family to cover the rest of the cost. I told everyone I knew about my dream. I was somehow going to buy a Korg T1. There were sacrifices. I didn’t go out much. I was noticeably absent from Senior Prom because the cost of date and dinner would have subtracted from the T1 fund. I mowed every lawn possible, listening to tapes on my Sony Walkman and imagining my own hands prancing over those 88 weighted keys while bagging grass clippings in the DC summer humidity.

The day finally came when Mom and I strutted into Chuck Levin’s music store in Bethesda. Before walking into the store, Mom stopped the Oldsmobile station wagon, the automotive wonder (you wondered how it was automotive) that would someday earn the nickname “Big Gus” and someday carry that Korg T1 to many, many gigs, and Mom said to me, “you have to be ready to walk out of that store without buying it.” Such was the start of several excruciating trips to Chuck Levin’s before the board was finally bought. I had my Korg T1, and its massive, blue anvil case with the new-paint smell that never went away, even after 17 years.

At this point I didn’t have an audio system to blast that sucker. Enter Wandering Moose who was trying to sell his Sun amp and two TOA speakers. I shelled out the remaining bits of bucks to Wandering Moose and installed all new gear in my basement room at home, so that Matt could come over and figure out how to program the thing while I played nearby on the C-64. At this point, I was a high school senior with little social life but a big dream about musical glory.

Little did I know the T1 would end up scoring me much tang through college and beyond.

You guys know the next 6 years of the story. Through college and post-graduation, from its unveiling at Dani’s graduation party to the big stage at RPI in upper NY, that T1 and sound system traveled to more gigs than I can remember. It certainly wasn’t easy lugging that monstrosity around. These were the years before the trend of lightweight and portable electronics. Transporting the T1 took two people. But you knew it everywhere it was played, especially with the two bumper stickers affixed to the top, proudly boasting allegiance to the Washington-based NFL and NHL franchises. In the recording studio, on stage and in the home, it was a comforting presence to know the C01 Piano patch could be retrieved at a moment’s notice and push the smooth sounds of an Amin7-DMaj transition into the ears of waiting listeners.

The strange part of developing an emotional attachment to musical gear is you never once question its logical inclusion as the primary furniture piece in your life. Between 1990 and 2002, I moved every year, changing actual addresses. No matter where I lived, the Korg T1 and Sun/TOA combo received first dibs on location in living quarters. This made for a cramped summer in Virginia Beach when the T1 took up more space than my bed. Movers were never happy, but this was a protected asset in my life, a revenue-generating asset, an asset my insurance company was tricked into believing was only for recreational home purposes.

Ultimately, when founding my business, I had to impress investors with a significant amount of founder equity, and listed the Korg T1 and Sun/TOA as capital contributions. They passed from personal control and became enlisted in the corporate world.

And so after 17 years of bound partnership, more than half my life, today I part with these pieces of musical fortune. They have served me well. They have served us well. It brings happy reminiscence to push the ejector spring one last time and have pop out with original handwriting a Babbage’s 3.25″ floppy disk reading, “Matt’s Disk!” EQ levers on the Sun head have popped off, draw levers on the T1 have lost their response, but I never once needed repair, and I never once was failed in time of need, and the music will always play on.

Turns out, I am an opiate abuser. At least according to my drug screening.

Yup, I failed the drug screening for my new job today – failed for “opiates” (heroin, morphine, etc). It was a simple dipstick urine test, and they’re sending it off to the lab to confirm.

Thing is.. I don’t use opiates. I’ve taken no painkillers, no antibiotics, nothing at all except Pepto last week, and maybe a Tylenol a week ago.

I DID have a poppy bagel last weekend, but there are varying theories about if that could have caused it.

SO – does anyone have any thoughts? I may be a Nurse, but I have no real experience about how the lab works. They say the test theyre going to do is more conclusive, but I’m a little scared, having accepted the offer and quit my other job.

Boyoboy – Friends are writing nasty letters, Ive got huge phone bills, and now I’m failing drug screenings.. when did I become Lindsay lohan?

There is a controversy about a movie shown at the Sundance Film Festival that I thought, given our mutual backgrounds in performing, might provoke some interest:

Rape Scene Storm

A MOVIE showing the simulated rape of 12-year-old actor Dakota Fanning has prompted outrage across the US after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. US religious groups and child protection organisations have called on police to investigate whether the makers of drama Hounddog had violated US child pornography laws with the rape scene.

In Hounddog, the character played by Fanning — best known for playing sweet child characters in Charlotte’s Web and I Am Sam — appears in her underwear, is sexually abused by her father and is raped on-screen by a teen.

It goes on to quote Bill Donohue as saying, “It matters not a whit whether Fanning’s mother, along with Fanning’s teacher or child welfare worker, gave their consent,” he said. “What matters is whether they are an accessory to a crime.”

To deny that these things take place in real life is to close your eyes to the real world. Relatives of mine have been sexually abused while a minor, and it’s startlingly common, particularly in Utah, the sex-abuse capital of the United States. Is it possible to depict these harrowing acts tastefully in film? Or is that a line we should not allow filmmakers to cross in this nation?

A very clever take on reinterpreting Star Wars IV-VI in light of what we learned in I-III.

Did you know that the first field agent of the Rebellion was… R2-D2?

http://www.morningstar.nildram.co.uk/A_New_Sith.html

I have been getting adicted to podcasts since I have gotten my Ipod nano. Any reccomendations for podcasts that you all enjoy listening to?

Here is a video that my wife forwarded to me last nigt. It is taken from someone’s balcony during a recent ice storm in Portland.

Enjoy…

Now I know everyone on this page will think this woman is either a loon or a misguided soul, but Laura Mallory is trying to remove Harry Potter from the classroom because it promotes Wicca and other non-Christian things. To quote:

Today’s generation faces evil like no other in history with the bombardment of violent, sexual and occult images of our modern mass media. I think perhaps we are so desensitized, we couldn’t recognize it even if on the plate in front of us. This case addresses only one facet of that evil, being spoon-fed to our children, even in the public schools. With the deceptive, exciting, children-friendly packaging of witchcraft in the Harry Potter series, our youth today view witchcraft not only as good and fun, but harmless fantasy. I’d like to clear up some misconceptions about the case and then just share my heart for a minute.

I disagree with her on two points: 1) Our generation is NOT facing evil like no other. Jews in Europe in the 1930s and 1940 faced evil like no other. It’s just another example of the hyperbole being fed to us to convince us we need help from something.

2) Even if we were living in the most evil times, Harry Potter is not the problem. Parents who don’t take active roles in their children’s lives, or who attempt to prevent their children from discovering life for themselves, they are the main culprits in our children’s demise. Harry Potter has as much to do with children converting to Wicca as Huck Finn did to promote slavery.

Oh, and by the way: Mallory hasn’t read the books yet

My $.02 Weed

We often hear about problems caused by US soldiers in Iraq. We see TV shows about soldiers accidentally shooting the wrong people.

We don’t often see this.

I guess in a bad way, my mom and I are famous. For those of us that live in MD, you may have heard about this.

http://www.nbc4.com/news/10833703/detail.html?dl=headlineclick

Yup, that was us. I know..I know, it was stupid. I have heard it from a dozen people. BUT….I ALWAYS leave my purse hidden in the car while at church. We have some elderly ladies who are mentally challenged and they steal money out of your purse. So we were told to keep it at home or hidden in your cars. Well, apparently I am not the only one who does this. The church down the street was hit on xmas eve and purses, men’s wallets, cell phones, cash, and xmas presents were stolen. Two schools, including my daughters, was hit during the day. Parents just running in to get their kids for only a few minutes would come back out and find their car window’s smashed in and purses stolen.

It has taken me two weeks to get my life back in order and it is still a battle with credit card companies, bank, etc.