Barnson.org

Provo, UT is the per-capita sex-offender capital of the nation.

I made this assertion in conversation with a co-worker the other day; I’ve read about several studies which back it up. He challenged this assertion, so I wanted a quick and easy way to be able to figure out how to validate the number of sex offenders in my area, and others. Here’s a useful site:

http://www.familywatchdog.us/Search.asp

Now, obviously, these statistics are going to be very, very rough, but they may be useful. By way of comparison:

• Provo boasts 105,000 people, and nearly 170 registered sex offenders, or about 1 in 600.
• Minneapolis, Minnesota, a town of roughly 380,000, has about sixty, or about 1 in 6300.
• The Gaithersburg, MD, area has a population of around 60,000, and has about sixty, or around 1 in 10,000.
• L.A. has a population of 3.69 million, and has around 1700 registered sex offenders, or about 1 in 2000.
• Salt Lake City, UT has a population (in the valley) of about 1,000,000, with around 670 registered offenders, or about 1 in 1500.
• Tooele, UT has a population of 28,000, with 56 registered offenders, or about 1 in 500.

So I stand corrected. Tooele’s worse than Provo. I’m fairly certain you’d be hard-pressed to find worse statistics outside of Utah, at least.

Maybe I should move to Minneapolis. Or buy my children mace or a tazer for their keyrings.

The most disturbing thing for me is looking at the sea of red on these maps around my home. In most states, there’s a fairly even division between adult victim, child victim, and other offenses, but around where I live it’s mostly children who have been abused.

This worries me, and I’m not sure what to do about it, other than moving to a safer area.

(To acknowledge possible opposition to my conclusion: Sure, yeah, maybe Utah’s better at publicizing the whereabouts of their offenders, or the state has better enforcement policies. I’m doubting that, but it’s a possibility.)

Billy Bob was in his front porch swing, staring morosely at the ground. His buddy Bubba walked up and tried to start a conversation several times, but Billy Bob only grunted. Finally, Bubba asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Well,” Billy Bob replied, “I ran afoul of one of them questions wives ask. Now I’m in the doghouse.”

“What question?” asked Bubba.

Billy Bob said, “She asked if I’d still love her when she was old, fat and ugly.”

“That’s easy,” Bubba said, “you say, ‘Of course I will‘”.

“Yeah,” Billy Don said, “that’s what I meant to say. But what came out was, ‘Of course I do.‘”

“I am Dyslexic of Borg. You will have your ass laminated.”

Discuss.

So, of late, the musicmakers on BARNSON have posted about their music, so I thought it might be fun (Matt, Ben, Sam, Rowan, others..) to name your best 2 (or more) songs (with links to mp3s if you got em) and what they’re about – or at least why you wrote them.

Additionally, if you like someone else’s songs on the site, ask em what they were thinking (for instance, I loved the explanation of headrun).

So, I’ll start… There are about 10 sonngs I would put on a Greatest Hits CD (based on what others have said, and somewhat my own opinion), and of the 10, the two I think are probably the best are “Starbucks Nation” and “Long Way Home”

Starbucks Nation (http://www.timpane.com/starbucks.mp3)is a snapshot of society today with an emphasis on the ills of corporate mind control of the general population through media. Specifically, it pokes fun not at the corporations but at the public’s willingness to be controlled through a variety of means ranging from groupthink to medication to peer pressure. I wrote the song based on the 1st rhyme “Capitalism has Replaced Catholicism”, and just kind of let it go from there. (Oh, and the Rap in the middle is based somewhat on my brother Kyle, who loves Tupac Shakur, but is also a “honky goin golfin”). Favorite line: “Justin and Kelly on TV (ref: American idol) but We’re (Reference me and my wife Kelly) what’s missing here.

Long Way Home (http://www.timpane.com/long.mp3)is based specifically on a random drive by my old house in Bethesda when my mother had vacated it. I saw the new people living there.. and it was right after my mom and Stepfather divorced. I was newly married, and driving by there was a harsh reminder that “Home” didn’t exist anymore. Fave line: “Look through Kaleidoscopes back at the years, at the fragmented pictures of a life that just seems such a long way home”

Okay.. and my questions: Matt: Explain Leave it All behind (not your best, but I want to know), and also, if you could, I’m Still me

Ben: What inspired “House of Dreams” and the song that starts “God’s Easel”

Sam: Breathless, please.. and Who is responsible for Mad Mad World

and Rowan: You should tell the folks about your writing stuff (The one from the thing where they walk down the street and its snowing.. – make a link)

So, just to prove me wrong, the multitrack recorder decided to work today. So, while I had a chance, I threw a bunch of tracks onto the laptop.

Of course, it didn’t work all at once. After the discussion about “Megan” yesterday, I decided to take it out this morning and see if I could get it to work. As in the past, I got this horrible buzz/crackle in the left channel whenever I used the stereo out or monitor out. After messing with it for a half hour or so, the only outputs I could get to work were the tape outputs from the individual tracks. So then I opened up Adobe Audition and recorded each individual track into the laptop. (How the hell did “Megan” get to be 7 minutes long? Just recording the 6 tracks took me almost 45 minutes!) So, since I had the tracks separated in the laptop, I was able to go back and do a little remastering, add some effects, etc. So it sounds kinda nice. The music doesn’t exactly synch up, but that’s not my fault – it was like that in the original.

Then, just on a whim, I checked the stereo out again, and lo and behold, no crackle! It’s trying to confuse me to death, clearly. Anyway, I was able to mix down a fair amount of vintage Wayward Sun. Enjoy!

Wayward Sun Rarities

Megan, music by Ben, lyrics by Weed! Back to Reality, music by Matt Crying In My Dreams, music and lyrics by Matt & Sam? Just As I See You, music and lyrics by Sam Nightmare, music by Ben, lyrics (and lead vocals) by Katy Nikki, music by Sam, lyrics by Ken Lennox Now or Never, music and lyrics by Sam and Ben, as well as the lamest instrumental break ever (my fault) Sad Anger, music and lyrics by Sam Shadows on the Wall, music and lyrics by Ben Wayward Sun, in a recording we made after Together Again For The First Time, featuring a drum solo by Kevin You and Me, music and lyrics by Matt, featuring Matt and some chick on lead vocals You’ll See The Sun Rise, music and lyrics by Matt(?), featuring Ben & Katy on vocals

Live at Chica’s 18th Birthday Party, June 1991

As We Go (DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince) – listen to a 17-year-old Sam rap Compulsive Fire – probably the first time we played it live For What It’s Worth (Buffalo Springfield) – I can still remember the looks of shock on Sam’s and my faces when Matt first hit that wah-wah pedal Silent Lucidity (Queensryche) – included purely for its comedic value Madness – an excellent live version of this On My Way – hey Matt, what’s a headrun?

And, since I had the FTP site open, here are a few recent goodies: Let It Go is my latest song, written in October, recorded in December and then revised a few weeks ago. And this is a totally new recording of an old Wayward Sun classic.

Enjoy!

I like my current employer for the most part from the stand point that pay isn’t bad, hours are good, and benefits expense is within reason.

For some reason I have hit this “motivational wall

Matt, it looks like you made the right choice by leaving the Mormon Church.

A new BYU study finds that Mormons in the state of Utah weigh an average of 4.6 pounds more than non-Mormon Utahans.

It’s the God-Shaped Hole Weight Loss System!

I came to a sad realization this morning in the car. I no longer trust my government. At all.

NPR this morning ran a story regarding the propaganda machine of the various Iraqi insurgent groups. It was an interesting story, and the point was that the insurgents are much more savvy from a multimedia and public image standpoint than most people would expect. But I had a very different reaction to the story.

The press releases put out by these insurgent groups deny much of the information being put out by the US. The US has said that there is infighting among the various insurgent groups; the press releases say this is not true, that the insurgents are more united than ever. The US says that some of those insurgent groups are negotiating compromises with the US; the press releases say this is a lie. And I realized, with a shock, that I am naturally inclined to believe the Iraqi insurgents over my own government.

This may seem obvious, considering that I’m a latte-drinking Northeastern liberal who dislikes Bush with a passion approaching hatred. (I don’t actually drink lattes.) But it came as a shock to me. Despite my ideological differences with the Republicans in the past, I’ve always at least had an inherent trust in the system, a subconscious belief that we’re still somehow more honorable than them.

But I suppose that things like Valerie Plame, NSA wiretaps, and “Mission Accomplished” have finally pushed me over the edge to where I’m more likely to believe the propaganda of Iraqi insurgent groups than the propaganda of my own government. And I feel really bad about that.

I want to believe in my government. I want to believe that we’re doing the right thing. I want to believe that I can trust the people in power, regardless of whether I agree with their politics. And I don’t.

So I ran across an article detailing How to Deal With Impossible People.

The more I read it, the more I went, “wow, dude, I know how X is JUST LIKE THIS”. And then, of course, towards the end, I read this:

If you think you might be an impossible person yourself (or you have become one with regard to the other person), realize just how awful you are being and try to improve yourself. Then again, if you are really an impossible person, you won’t even recognize yourself here. To you, this page will be all about “the other guy.” For the incorrigible impossible person, everything is always about “the other guy.” If you’re reading this page and thinking “Hey, that sounds just like (insert name of person you blame for everything),” you’re probably one of the people we are talking about here (although you could never admit it).

Of course, I hadn’t thought of myself through the entire piece!

Who do you know that’s impossible? OK, OK, don’t name names. A lot of family, friends, and (gulp!) employers read this blog. But seriously, are there any strategies suggested on this page which you’ve already tried? Or maybe a few that you’d suggest for dealing with a particularly impossible person that aren’t mentioned?

My basic coping strategy throughout most of my life has been “agree with everything they say, then go do my own thing my way anyway”. Not the best approach, but it works 🙂

:jawdrop: Ever listen to Barenaked Ladies Song “Box Set”? Well, its done.. the biggest project I’ve ever attempted that absolutely no one will know or care about.

Polishing the turd – (pawlisheeng th(schwaa) terd) – V. The act of endeavoring to make something that isn’t that good to begin with appear better than it is, usually futile.

I have recorded 193 tracks of music since I started in 1990 at the age of 13. And most of them suck. Yup, most of them are so unlistenable that we would have to be quite close before I would ever let you hear them. And yet, I have spent close to 100 hours in the last year or so cataloguing and remastering all 193 tracks.

I got the idea when, on a whim, I spent some time remastering the first Wayward Sun album (the results of which are on the music section of Barnson). It was cool to have the old tape on CD and on my computer to play whenever I wanted. I thought.. well, it would be cool to do that with all my old stuff…

So I searched through tapes, recorded them into the computer, took out the hiss, remastered the songs, divided them into their original “albums”, and put the albums in Chronological order. Then I did the same stuff for all my digital work, all the CDs up through the newest one (which you can download at http://www.timpane.com/mp3 ) and now I have it.

Some stats: 15 Albums 193 Different Tracks of Original Music 110 Original Songs plus Four Original Scores 27 Remakes Of Earlier Songs 16 Collaborations with Other people 3 Writing Collaborations with Matt Barnson 1 Song Lost Forever 1 Song Retired Forever 2 Songs Written entirely by Someone Else 4 Different Recordings of Holdin Hearts holdin Hands 4 Different Recordings of Kelly’s Song

The funny thing is – no one will care right now. My brother laughs at me because it seems like such a self-centered waste of time. And to be honest, I’m trying not to agree with him.

Here’s why: 1) Posterity. I didn’t know many of my Grandparents that well, and one not at all… and I know nothing about other ancestors. Heck, I only really know my Dad as my Dad, and have no real idea of what he may have been like when he was younger. With a kid on the way, I want this to be around for my brothers and sister and my kids and Grandkids.. i want this put in some family Vault – and hopefully one day it will be unearthed like the letters my one living Grandparent finds when she does Geneaology – its really my heart and soul put into music, its my diary, even if a lot of it sucks.

2) Reflection. I like listening to my old stuff.. its like therapy. I listen to what I used to write vs. what I write now and I try to gauge how I’m doing as a person. Its like rereading an old diary, and I think that has value.

3) Novelty. I can think of about 10 people who will actually want this, and about half of them will probably listen to it a lot – people I grew up with who listened to these songs when they were new.. and a couple who have really been requesting this.

I think it was time well spent, and its good that I’ve finished and can finally put one more thing behind me on my list of “things I want to do before the baby is born”. Now.. about that next album… :jawdrop: