MMM

I really, really want one of these.

I'm sorry but the attempts to frame this horrific family murder/suicide as an economic issue is simply ridiculous. It takes much more than tough external forces to cause people to commit such acts of atrocity - it takes a massively twisted fucking psyche:

It was described as one of the most grisly scenes Los Angeles police had ever encountered: the bodies of five small children and their parents, all shot to death, in two upstairs rooms of the family's home.

But even more incomprehensible to some was the story that emerged after the bodies were found Tuesday: A father who, after he and his wife were fired from their jobs, killed all six family members before turning the gun on himself.

In a letter faxed to Los Angeles television station KABC before his suicide, Ervin Antonio Lupoe blamed his former employer for the deaths, detailing his grievance against Kaiser Permanente's West Los Angeles Medical Center, where he and his wife Ana had worked as technicians.

I'm sure times were tough, and his lost job was the excuse, but you don't go from loving your family to deciding they should die because you have some financial problems, I don't care how serious they are. I guarantee there are thousands, if not millions, of Americans in a tougher spot than this douchebag, suck it up.

Also annoying is the media's attempt to make this about the recession, as though mass murderers can be created in a matter of months because of hard economic conditions. These things tend to happen more in times of crises, but not because these psychotic individuals aren't out there, but because these situations unearth them, giving them excuses for their terror.

Please don't encourage the psychos CNN.

A friend showed me this kinda-funny Slate article about Billy Joel called The Worst Pop Singer Ever. It's cheeky, cute. Here's a bit:

I'm reluctant to pick on Billy Joel. He's been subject to withering contempt from hipster types for so long that it no longer seems worth the time. Still, the mystery persists: How can he be so bad and yet so popular for so long? He's still there. You can't defend yourself with anti-B.J. shields around your brain. He still takes up the space, takes up A&R advances that would otherwise support a score of unrecognized but genuinely talented artists, singers, and songwriters, with his loathsomely insipid simulacrum of rock.

Heh.

I'm no great Billy Joel-lover, though I'll admit to having a few of his songs on my iPod, but here is what bugs me about the article. It contains zero insight on the musical merit of his songs; it is solely about the lyrics in his songs. Yeah, Billy's songs are kinda douchey. Yeah, his lyrics aren't always the best. But if you are going to devote an entire article, even if it is purposefully silly, on why an artist is good or bad, you have to criticize their art. The author, Ron Rosenbaum, even qualifies the critique by describing his attempts at finding "absolute standards" of art. Well, I would assume that almost everyone would consider the craft involved in ones art to be one of those "absolute standards", but the author is obviously completely unqualified to judge Billy Joel's art in a musical context.

Billy Joel is a pretty good musician. He's definitely a good singer (or was) and wrote several well-crafted - if rather trite - songs. It's good 80s pop, not much more. His lyrics can be pretentious, in the case of And So It Goes (although I kinda love it), or dreadful, in the case of Pressure. Usually they are ok. Obviously, the author finds BJ to be annoying. Alright. I can see that. But that is not a valid criticism in and of itself. Here are a couple examples of his justifications:

First let's take "Piano Man." You can hear Joel's contempt, both for the losers at the bar he's left behind in his stellar schlock stardom and for the "entertainer-loser" (the proto-B.J.) who plays for them. Even the self-contempt he imputes to the "piano man" rings false.

"Captain Jack": Loser dresses up in poseur clothes and masturbates and shoots up heroin and is an all-around phony in the eyes of the songwriter who is so, so superior to him.

"The Entertainer": Entertainers are phonies! Except exquisitely self-aware entertainers like B.J., who let you in on this secret.

K, got it, you don't dig the lyrics. But that does not make you a music critic, anymore than it would make me an art critic be if I decided I didn't like a painting because I thought it was ugly. It may be fair for me to form that opinion, but it doesn't make me an authority. And I sure as hell would not be conceited enough to write an article for a major online publication decrying that work of art for being ugly, while being completely ignorant of the technique involved in creating it.

Seriously, they don't put up with this shit in the art world, why do musicians find it acceptable that utter laymen are the primary commentators on their work?

This is how I felt this morning when I woke up to find my apartment void of my favorite caffeine-laden hot liquid.

Can they pledge to not make any more of these sappy freaking videos?

Yo, catch my sis Suzanne tonight at 9pm on the premiere episode of Fox's new drama, Lie To Me, starring the legendary Tim Roth. She plays a newcaster. Awesome.

Make sure you watch it through to the end to catch the über-creepy picture. This is straight-up cult-speak. It still disgusts me that Obama picked this dude, partly because it is a giant "fuck you" to gays after Prop 8, but mainly because I think that most mega-churchs are cults. Warren sums up my fear of mega-churches in this speech explicitly. Every time I see a mega-pastor speaking to the thousands of people at a mega-church, I think of Hitler in Munich. Here, Rick Warren not only makes that comparison, he seems to make it favorably. WTF.

And did anyone think that Warren's dismissal of "moderation" was a little ironic, considering who just hired him to speak at his inauguration?

I finally got around to watching my first Terrence Malick film last night, Badlands. Considering that I had read much about the film, and its director, I can't say that I was really shocked by the film, but it kept me up all night thinking about it.

Here's a relatively spoiler-free clip:



I thought it was a little funny that the two DVDs I have from Netflix currently are Badlands and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Well, I did until I was reading commentary on IMDB last night and found several posts explicitly comparing the two. Weird.

Next up is Malick's follow-up to Badlands, Days of Heaven. I'm a methodical sumbitch.

In honor of the new Biggie movie coming out tomorrow - and presented in stark contrast to what looks to be a heart-warmingly revisionist biopic of one of my favorite rappers - I thought it would be nice post one of my favorite Biggie flows of all time.



Dead Wrong. This tune was Biggie's foray into the extreme rap subgenre of horrorcore (although it was released posthumously). It's one not liable to come up on the soundtrack for the movie, mainly because it's one of the most violent and explicit lyrics ever recorded by a mainstream artist. I dig it for several reasons: 1. It is a great example of his expert rhyming skills - something you don't really get on, say, Going Back to Cali as much; and 2. It highlights gangsta rap's fantastical nature, to an extreme degree.

See, contrary to popular belief, gansta rappers don't necessarily believe what they are writing/saying, they are in character. Christopher Wallace was the man and Notorious B.I.G was the fictional persona he created for himself. To many it may appear as if they must always wholeheartedly agree with said character for the mere fact that they are speaking it, but that is an incredibly simplistic way of viewing it. It would be similar to the absurdity of expecting every actor in a horror film to defend every one of their lines as if they themselves meant it.

When Ice-T wrote the controversial single Cop Killer and all of the politicians were up in arms, they simply could not fathom that Ice-T wasn't advocating killing policeman, he was writing fiction. Yes, it was based on his frustration with the police, but that is how art works (unsurprisingly, Tipper Gore didn't quite get this) - it is a personal expression, and sometimes a fantasy based on the root of that expression.

Biggie was a businessman, and in many ways cleaned up his act at times to achieve starhood, but he was also a raw talent, his heart was in the skill and craft of rhyming. Movies like Notorious will attempt to transform him into something 'more' - a symbol - but they neglect that, for the most part, art is not about the narrative, it is about the craft. I don't care if Biggie slang crack or loved his Momma, that don't mean shit to me. The tragedy of his death to me is that there will never be any new Biggie rhymes. That sucks. Luckily, his rhymes are rich enough that we can constantly find new appreciation in them, new ways of recontextualizing them. I've already done one Biggie remix, I'm sure I'll produce more.

"I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.”
- Barack Obama in 1996

He needs to be confronted on this at his next press conference, straight up. I've always suspected that his civil-unions stance was purely political and this seems to prove it. What up Barry?

If you're like me, and the last eight years have been essentially one giant cringe, you may be getting these momentary rushes of euphoria - almost like little squirts of dopamine in the brain - with the knowledge that it's almost over. Last night, while watching the newest torture-happy episode of 24, I thought to myself, "Now that Bush is leaving office, can 24 stop feeling the need to come up with increasingly contrived reasons to torture someone in every episode?" (seriously - and I say this as the standard fictional-torture-loving red-blooded American male - get over it 24).

But, as with the end of any era, there is the nostalgia aspect. By most accounts, the 60s sucked big-time. Dudes were getting drafted, icons were getting assassinated, people were getting hosed in the streets, there were riots, there was rising crime, there was rising drug use, women were still subjugated, poverty and illiteracy was rampant in rural areas, etc. But what do people remember? The Forrest Gump shit. Hippies, LSD, the sexual revolution, civil rights gains, bell-bottoms. All of it, good and bad, gets filtered through that soft-focus lens of history. A "gumpification", if you'll allow me the coining of a term, occurs, smoothing the rough edges of the gritty, uncomfortable reality of the situation into a smoothed narrative, one that is acceptable in hindsight.

While this gumpification may annoy some as a gross distortion of past reality, it is also part of the process of dealing with the past. We all do this in our lives, often looking back on horrifying experiences with nostalgia, or even pleasure, basking in the distance between the uncomfortable reality of a past experience and our fictionalized memory of that experience. A clear example of this in political history is Richard Nixon. Once the great shame of a nation - the highest example of wickedness and weakness in our politic - he is now known more to young people as a cartoonish bad guy, something like a mix of a pirate and Count Dracula, his personal catch-phrase a blubbered out "I am not a crook!" between slack rabbit cheeks as his arms hover inhumanely above his head piercing the skies with matching Vs. We gumpified him into a lovable disgrace. He can't hurt us anymore.

While it may seem as if this piece is going to be about Bush, it is not. His gumpification has already occurred in large part. I don't really feel any specific animosity toward the man. It helps that he was a complete and utter tool. History will prove him to be merely a place-sitter, a child in daddy's chair. He was a nothing-president, and no one really fears him anymore.

Bush is now a national joke; Cheney as well is somewhat of a caricature, though more of a growling-wolf-with-bared-teeth kind of character, not as humorous just yet; Rumsfeld has been iconicized - by collections of his unintentional poetry - into a sort of bumbling senile Sgt. Carter; Wolfowitz is the guy who sucks on his comb before he combs his hair; Karl Rove is in reality just a charismatic huckster, the type who would rip us off at a yard sale and upon us realizing our mistake wag his finger knowingly at us with a sly smile. These chief architects, of the wars, the failed economic policies, the unbelievably poor distaster responses, the shredding of our constitution, and on and on and on, are essentially finished doing their damage, and we're about to shoo them out of the kitchen like the little rascals they are. Hell, we've already forgiven Powell for lying to the U.N.

The real demons though, are the ones that aren't going away. Equally essential to the national tragedy that was the last eight years was the enthusiastic encouragement of a few conservative pundits who were somehow able to frame the debate on their terms. I'm having a tough time gumpifying them, mainly because they are still doing their dirty work (although you can see my effort in labeling them "demons"). I make a distinction, which I feel is very important, between those pundits who lean to the right and have opinions that are in general accordance with the Republicans and the Bush administration and those on the right that formed their opinions and arguments based on what the administration decided. You can generally tell who is in which camp by who still supports the president unequivocally to this day.

In the former:

Bill O'Reilly
David Frum
Jonah Goldberg
Chris Wallace
Charles Krauthammer

In the latter:

Rush Limbaugh
Sean Hannity
Ann Coulter
Bill Kristol
Fred Barnes
Kathryn Lopez

The distinction is that those in the former camp believe what they believe, and are, for the most part, wrong. The latter group holds no real beliefs for themselves; they form their opinions and recommendations based on what the administration wants. The administration wants X and they figure out ways to make it happen. The former group is still tremendously unqualified to give their paltry opinions, that usually coincide with the administrations - and in all likelihood many of those opinions would not exist were it not for the administration - but I don't believe they are consciously delivering the propaganda; they are not literal campaigners, as are the ones in the second group.

These propagandists are not going away just yet. They have yet to complete their destruction, which is why I still fear them, and why it is difficult to marginalize them. Limbaugh is still a source of horror, despite attempts over the last two decades to caricature him (including one on The Simpsons!), because he will still be doing damage in the years to come. The real acute pain and shame I felt over these last eight years was primarily watching my fellow countrymen and women, and in some cases friends and family of mine, fall prey to the propaganda of these evil people (I have always been one to consider amorality worse than immorality; harm done out of duty more dangerous than harm done out of sadism). In a way, the shock of these last eight years was not that these terrible things happened, it is that they could happen, with the blessing of the American people.

I am a horror film nut, my favored sub-genre being horror-of-personality, rather than supernatural horror. What frightens me is not the literal monster in the shadows, its the monster that hides in the shadows of our own minds; it is the knowledge that you share a kinship with the worst that humankind can surface. I am not the type to believe that the masses of any public are simply herds of sheep to be led. What causes people to adopt horrifying positions and to approve of horrifying policy is that there is a part of all of us that can be cruel and evil; there is a facet of our personalities that can excuse anything. The millions who were able to excuse blatant torture and murder at Abu Ghraib (even with photographs!), with a little help from Rush and Co., did so knowing full well what was happening, but were able to adopt it into their morality. Those millions of people are not different than I; they are not necessarily more stupid or less informed than I. The question arises: what would make me excuse these types of actions?

The last eight years were, in a word, sobering. They were a slap in the face to all peace-loving, warm-hearted liberals, telling them to come down from their Tower of Babel. The people of Earth, especially The U.S., are not ready to create a heaven here. The fact that support for the Iraq War was 76% in 2003, at the time of invasion, means that pretty much every anti-war person, such as myself, had people that they love and care for deeply who were enthusiastically in favor of invading another country under scant evidence, knowing full well that hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children would be killed as a result. These pundits, along with a weak-kneed mainstream media, were the ones that brought out this evil in us. To me it was, and is, tremendously hurtful and is still quite fresh in my mind. When Bush and his team goes back their respective ranches in a few days, leaving their mythic afterimages on the public consciousness, these muses of horror will remain.

But this brings me to my original inspiration for this piece, an oddly uplifting sensation I felt upon reading an article by one of these muses, called "Bush's Achievements", subtitled Ten things the president got right, by Fred Barnes. The column left me with a certain nostalgia. I imagined Barnes' rather cartoonish appearance as I remembered seeing him on Fox News: his chubby, bespectacled face flanked by his seemingly frame-painted rigid hair, his dopey smile delivering his audacious words with a glint in his eye that told you he knew what he was saying was bullshit, but ya can't blame him for trying! I'm sure if I sought out a video on YouTube of Fred Barnes speaking this would all come crashing down, and my disdain and revulsion for the man would resurface, but why would I want to do that? Certainly these assholes will never wield the power they once held, why shouldn't I let them float gracefully into the gumpification of my memory and history.

The damage that these pundits caused is irreversible, and they are not going away anytime in the very-near future, but their power has lessened dramatically. Some of them even seem to be capitalizing on their becoming parodies of themselves, as is the case with Ann Coulter in recent days. Let us hope that they embrace these new roles as clowns for, unlike Nixon, they have no dignity to lose. I long for the day when these people can no longer cause dread, and we can look back on them with condescending smirks of levity, perhaps eventually we can even laugh in turn at the horror in ourselves they once unearthed.

This guy:

[U.S. Rep. Eric] Massa (D) had to be in the nation’s capital Tuesday for his swearing in as the 29th Congressional District’s new representative. He drove the General Motors Equinox prototype car to draw attention to the technology, some of which is being developed in the district.

The problem is the car can go about 150 to 200 miles without a refill, and the trip from Corning to Washington, D.C. is 282 miles. And there are no hydrogen refilling stations along the way.

As a result, Massa had to switch to another GM hydrogen fuel cell vehicle that was standing by in Harrisburg.

After the trip, both cars were towed back to their original locations by two Chevrolet Tahoe hybrid SUVs.

And yes of course, if you're once to keep track of carbon emissions, the amount released to power the Tahoes was retartedly more than it would have been had he driven a normal car, or in fact a Chevy Tahoe, or likely a freakin' dump truck. Whoo! Good start dude!

There is an Alarm Will Sound feature in the newest issue of MUSO Magazine. I was interviewed, along with Gavin Chuck and John Richards. Given the sassy nature of the magazine, I gave a lot of sassy responses to their questions, and was surprised that they printed most of it. Cool.

Here are a couple pages from our feature, click each image to view fullsize:





Btw, if I look a little, as Melly would say, "gaunt", it's because I was about two days out of the hospital and had dropped 30-40 lbs. :) This was over a year ago, I'm all better (and fatter) now!

For more info on MUSO or to order a copy check out their website MUSOLIFE.COM

If you are at all interested in having a good-sounding sampled piano for your studio, whether you'd just like a good sound for Sibelius playback or you'd like a decent sound for recording and/or performance you should definitely hop on over to the SONART website.

They are currently offering a free download of their Yamaha C7 sampled piano, which normally retails for $89. It's by no means a top-of-the-line piano, but if you are sick of the shockingly bad-sounding piano in Sibelius and you have the Kontakt player installed, there is no reason for you not to grab this download.

For my tunes I've been using a pretty decent sampled Bösendorfer, so I don't know if I'd prefer the Yamaha yet, but it can't hurt to have another piano. Once it's downloaded and you've gotten rid of all of the extemporaneous files it'll set you back about 800 megs or so, not bad. I recently cleaned house to make way for Pro Tools, so I've got about 20 gigs free where I once had, I don't know, one?

Here's a sample of it in action: Puccini.mp3

Yes, there's something funny about the attack - a bit too hard for my taste - though I don't think it'd be too much trouble to temper it in a sampler editor.

It should have been the perfect wedding ... but Sydney couple Steve and Leigh Buttel claim unwanted guests — including maggots in their wedding bed and bedroom invasions by bats — turned their wedding into a bride's worst nightmare ... the newlyweds had allegedly found maggots described by the groom as "the size of chocolate bullets" in their wedding bed and a dead bat, covered in maggots, above their bedhead.

Um.

A. Would bullet-sized maggots be larger than normal maggots?

B. Are chocolate bullets larger than normal bullets?

C. Did the maggots at all resemble the form of a bullet, or the color of chocolate? I have yet to come across maggots of this nature.

D. What the fuck is a chocolate bullet?

Ok, I heard about Microsoft Songsmith - thought it sounded like an absolute abortion of an idea. This video not only proves that the program is worse than I could have imagined, the video itself makes me want to... it makes me want to eat glass. It makes me want to chew and swallow shards of glass, if only to somehow be able to fathom another sensation overshadowing the sacharrine, failed-tongue-in-cheek, naive freaking holocaust of an ad campaign I just viewed.

Enjoy!

This looks like a fun little piece of hardware. Only 200 bucks. More info at CDM.

This is why people don't take you seriously anymore.

"Terror - what Hunter Thompson calls 'fear and loathing' - often arises from a pervasive sense of disestablishment; that things are in the unmaking. If that sense of unmaking is sudden and seems personal - if it hits you around the heart - then it lodges in the memory as a complete set. Just the fact that almost everyone remembers where he/she was at the instant he/she heard the news of the Kennedy assassination is something I find almost as interesting as the fact that one nurd with a mail-order gun was able to change the entire course of world history in just fourteen seconds or so. That moment of knowledge and the three-day spasm of stunned grief which followed it is perhaps the closest any people in history has ever come to a total period of mass consciousness and mass empathy and - in retrospect - mass memory: two hundred million people in a living frieze. Love cannot achieve that sort of across-the-board hammerstrike of emotion, apparently. More's the pity."

- Steven King, Danse Macabre