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Let the Board Roll

Just a few thoughts…

In Aikido we often find that we are “blocking ourselves”. We might be having trouble with a technique. Why does it not work? Why is my training partner giving me shit? More often than not, the problem is with one’s self. You are doing something that is actually preventing the technique from working. Perhaps you are standing in the spot you want to move your training partner into, and wondering why he/she is not there. Ughhhh…maybe because you are standing there?

Happens all the time.

In skateboarding, especially when skating vert, you might wonder why you are not hitting that frontside grind. Why do you not have the speed to get up there to the lip?

Guess what. It’s because you are turning to early. You are preventing your own success.

You have to just let the board roll. That’s it. Let the board roll, and stand on top of it.

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Cosmos and Pure Research, and other stuff

Last night’s episode of Cosmos (the new series) covered this (stealing this from another site!):

In “The Clean Room,” To determine the true age of the Earth, geochemist Clair Patterson (guest voice Richard Gere) developed the uranium-lead dating method to make an unprecedented discovery – calculating Earth’s age of 4.5 billion years. But Patterson’s groundbreaking discoveries were just beginning. Patterson made it his mission to draw public attention to the detrimental effects of lead in the environment and dedicated his career to fighting against the petroleum and chemical industry, eventually achieving public health’s biggest victory of the 20th century. 

Really good episode. I was impressed in the way it accomplished several tasks…

  1. Told the story of Patterson and his investigation into the pervasiveness of lead in our environment. Demonstrated the unforeseen benefits of pure research. Fiscal conservatives often question the value of pure research, but many of the greatest discoveries come from research NOT involved in trying to develop some consumer product.
  2. Clearly explained that big business will produce intentionally biased research to support their own money-making activities. The message to climate change deniers was clear and devastating.
  3. Explained WHY we know the earth is billions of years old, rather than the creationist version that is about 6000 years old. Neil also explained HOW the church came up with the low figure, back when we thought the Bible was literally true.

So anyway, another great episode. Loving this show. If you aren’t watching it, you should. Put the zombies and other stuff on DVR. Get you some science. Make yourself smarter.

 

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Dudes who got it right

Age gives an the advantage of perspective on earlier years. Is it an advantage? Maybe. I guess. I’m sure that in future decades, should I be lucky enough to have a few more, I will think that as of today I didn’t know a damned thing. However, I think these dudes are a bit of an exception.

Henry with a few of his books.

The guys in these pictures — they got it right.

Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye, and Jello Biafra. (You can click on these images to go to their sources).

In my mind these guys are the Trinity of Punk Rock.  When I want to listen to some punk, it’s going to usually involve Black Flag, Fugazi (or Minor Threat), and the Dead Kennedys.

But when I say they got it right I’m not talking about the music. I’m talking about everything else.

These are pretty much the three smart dudes from punk. They are the ones who have grown into intelligent, progressive, well-spoken adult human beings.

I am constantly amazed by how many people I know who “love” punk rock, and are skateboarders, grow up to adopt a repressive, conservative political and social ideology. I think part of this conundrum stems from the fact that punk (at least the kind from the 1980s) tends to be very aggressive music, and thus it attracts not only smart people but some fairly not-quite-as -smart people too. I’m sure a lot of young people are just trying to “find themselves” or enjoy being part of an outsider group, so they get into it. I’m sure this happened with my generation. My friend Bosco says young people are often just “trying on different uniforms.” Then they grow up and become their parents. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes not so much. Honestly, I have never “worn the uniform” of anything but a skateboarder. But as I’ve gotten older, and these guys have gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate them more and more.

 

I just find it fascinating because these three guys, while they have grown up and evolved and become more sophisticated in their thinking and more articulate in their communication, to me, seem like they kind of got it right in the first place.

Somehow, from a young age these guys had a clarity of thought that a lot of people just don’t have. Some people never get it. I think Henry probably had a rougher time with his youth, but he made it, and if you listen to his spoken word, he is right on target on almost everything.

I am reminded of a quote from Bike Snob NYC, regarding the music of Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys. Here’s the quote. Click through and read the whole post though. He’s a great writer.

As I got older, however, I “matured,” and my outlook on life became more pragmatic.  I no longer grouped things into “good” and “evil” categories based on where they fell on the Jello Biafra Outrage Scale.  (The more shrilly Jello Biafra sings about something the more evil it was.)  I no longer automatically rejected anything “mainstream,” and I stopped assuming that anything that was part of the mainstream was somehow automatically tainted.  Most of all, I laughed at my own naïveté, I dropped the attitude, and I got down to the non-ideological business of becoming an adult.Jello. Photo from http://noisecreep.com/jello-biafra-band-nostalgic-punk/

But then, years later, something amazing happened, and I realized that all those albums I used to listen to were right.  Well, maybe they weren’t right about a lot of the specifics, but it turns out that the general message–that mainstream culture is vacuous and bankrupt–is pretty much entirely correct.

In the last 7 years I’ve had the chance to see Henry and Jello both do spoken word performance. Both these guys are downright masterful in this craft. Entertaining, engaging, thought-provoking, and just provoking. Really good. Ian doesn’t do spoken word, but I keep up with him and if he is ever in this area I will surely to see him play. I saw him with Fugazi back in the 1990s.

Well, that’s all I’ve got to say today. Go have some fun.

 

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Cosmos, Slack, and Etc.

This will be kind of a disjointed post. I just yesterday returned from a librarian conference in Indianapolis.

I am schedule for Jury Duty tomorrow, but seem to be coming down with a cold, probably from spending several hours sealed into the filthy disease-infested metal tube that is an airplane. I tried to used the “defer” option on the county jury duty website, but it wouldn’t let me, so I will show up sick and snotty in the morning. Perhaps it will help me to not have to serve. That’s what they say.

Anyway, as I said, a disjointed post from a weary mind and tired body. Too tired to proof this. You’ll just have to live with the typos.

Last night was episode 2 of the new Cosmos series. My new main man head honcho of science, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, threw down the gauntlet last night on national TV by simply stating that evolution is fact. 

I’m not sure why creationism annoys me so much. I think it’s because the creationist thought process usually feeds a lot of other ideas. Climate change denial. Homophobia. The list goes on. I think I’m right about this. Oh, maybe not in every single instance, but in most. I don’t feel the same way about all religion. Really. I don’t. I don’t believe in any religion, but I certainly don’t hold in disdain reasonable  religious believers. It’s the crazy ones I can’t stand. In the end, everyone is just trying to make sense of the world, and questions of life’s origins are, for most of us, not operationally all that important on a day to day basis.

Anyhooo…Cosmos 2 was great. I think episode 2 was even better than the first episode. They are using the nice computer graphics to really enhance the science-telling, and not letting them take over.

And with regard to the evolution issue, Neil was really just masterful in the way he explains it all without making anyone feel stupid. Sure, the really heavy duty creationists will be pissed off, but overall Neil really does a great job of leading people to the light without brow-beating them. That’s the way you have to do these things. No one likes to be told they are stupid.

Good stuff.

As I write this, I’m listening to the Subgenius Hour of Slack. Rev. Ivan Stang has been producing the Hour of Slack for many years. He and his fellow Subgenius are really fantastic at producing audio collages. As a podcaster, I really appreciate their skill. You gotta put some time into it and really put some energy into collecting sounds to do this kind of thing.

The Church of the Subgenius. DEVO. A few other things like that. These things — I just find them so wonderfully correct. In their subversive craziness they just totally it it right. DEAD ON RIGHT.  Where Jello Biafra (who I dig) beats you over the head with the truth, DEVO and the Subgenius sneak it into a suppository …

OK, now for the ETC. part of this post.

Whilst the librarian conference was going on at the gigantic Indianapolis Convention Center, the Indiana Comic Con was also in the building, and it was the most joyful event I’ve ever seen. I have not been to a Con since the whole cosplay thing became so popular. The Con was sold out, but people were holding their own out in the halls of the convention center. They were totally stoked. It was their time, they would not be robbed of it, and I love it that these folks get to do what they like and be themselves.

2014-03-15 14.36.22

 

 

 

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New Cosmos Series and Risks to Civilization

When I first watched Cosmos during its original broadcast, I was a teenager. The most likely thing to destroy civilization was nuclear war. It always seemed like a possibility, and most of us were pretty afraid of it. In fact, everyone who wasn’t insane was afraid of nuclear war.

Of course, we still have the danger of nuclear war. It is still there, but I suppose with the end of the cold war tensions seem a bit less.

Today of course we are concerned with Climate Change/Global Warning. At least the non-stupid people are. In the new Cosmos series Dr. Tyson has already addressed the threat that Climate Change poses to us. He did this on a major TV network, during prime time, to millions of people. That is pretty damned cool. And it takes courage and balls.

You see, no one “disagreed” with the existence of the threat of nuclear war. We knew there were, in fact, lots of nuclear bombs, and that war could start due to actual conflict of even just a mistake.

However, today we have a lot of people who simply refuse to acknowledge the science behind Climate Change. It’s combination of plain old stupidity, willful ignorance, and a campaign of misinformation coming from those profiting from the current energy model. I guess I should also add that a lot of people simply don’t care. They can’t “see” it, so they don’t care.

Conservative politicians and talk show hosts have managed to turn this scientific issue into a political issue — really almost a religious issue. Incredibly, they have convinced significant portions of the population that scientists have concocted this notion of climate change in order to advance their own careers, or some other such bullshit, when in fact the misinformation campaign is largely being funded by people who are actively getting rich off the current situation.

Truly, we are a country containing a vast amount of stupidity and ignorance.

I hope the broadcast of the new Cosmos series will have some positive effect on the current climate of anti-science and pro-superstition in the United States. I am skeptical, but hopeful. There will always be some poor dumbasses who think the world is only 7000 years old, but I think there are a lot of people who are reachable.

 

 

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MacBook — it’s been nice knowing you?

My 7 year old 13″ Macbook, which is on it’ second battery, will no longer take a charge.  Not – at – all. Totally dependent on power chord now.

If I weren’t in the middle of a bathroom remodel and still need to buy an expensive shower door and a new crapper, I would be on my way for the replacement about…right…now.

Maybe in a couple of months. For now, the Chromebook, iPod Touch will let me get by.

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Bob 2

Today it was announced that Bob Casale, also known as Bob 2, of DEVO, has died from heart failure at the age of 61. Bob’s brother, Gerald Casale, called Bob  “DEVO’s anchor”.  He played on every DEVO album.

If you’re a skateboarder from the late 1970s, DEVO is part of the soundtrack of your life. There was something about DEVO that spoke to skaters. Probably the weirdness. Skateboarding wasn’t an accepted part of the American psychic landscape back then. Skaters were weirdos. DEVO was weirdos. The music was weird but rocking and cool. Bingo. Instant connection.

About 4 years ago my dad was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. We got the information in the afternoon. That night, in Dallas, my wife and I went to see DEVO play. It made me feel better. It was fun, and loud, and took my mind off the situation. The fun absurdity of the music speaks, at least to me, to the absurdity around us all the time. When you really listen, it isn’t absurd at all. It makes sense. Devolution is real. Strong good men getting brain cancer — that is absurd, but it’s the nature of things.

That is all really just to say that again — yeah – the soundtrack of my life, as a humanoid and a skater.

Less than a week ago, a longtime Texas skateboarder also died of heart failure. My friend Clay Towery. One of the funniest, weirdest people I’ve ever met.

Two beautiful mutants in one week.

Peace to the family, friends, and fans of these two men.  Thanks to your contributions to my life.

Bob 2 Casale
Bob 2 Casale

 

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Radio

People who enjoy music spend a great deal of time procuring a sound system that is fantastic, that has a huge sound, that performs.

I’m the same way. I love a good, rich sound.

But there’s something comforting about a small radio. Especially at night. Maybe it is the memory of hearing my dad’s bedside radio in the other room late at night, but I love to have the radio on at night. I love to have it on in my office when I’m working on something, or when I’m out in the garage. In the car — give me my iPod.

1891225_10151866469941502_1780433810_nI love this radio. I got it a couple of years ago. It’s a nice radio that pics up short wave bands too. So if there’s nothing on regular radio, I can always find some kind of crazy stuff from who knows where.  The crazier the better. I don’t like to listen to political talk radio. I think it is one of the biggest problems of our country, as it inflames peoples opinions against each other. When I say “crazy”, I mean conspiracy talk or crazy religious stuff, or just a good eclectic music show. Sometimes I like to just have it on a foreign language station via short wave.

One thing about radios though. If you want a radio that will have long battery life, don’t get one with display like this. It uses too much power. A standard old school transistor radio will last forever on the same batteries. They are actually not super easy to find these days, so if you have one take care of it.

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Saturday Night Tech Bitching

OK, I’ll admit I use some old technology. But damn, I got some bitching to do.

It will make me feel better…

Oh yeah – this post has some bad words in it, to reflect my state of frustration. If you don’t like to read such words, I invite you to get the hell of my blog right now.  K? K.

  • My 7 year old MacBook came with iMovie HD. For some reason it no longer recognizes my 8 year old Mini-DV camcorder for importing footage. Thing is, last time I tried it, all this shit worked! Did a software update sneak in and fuck up my setup? If so, well, screw them!
  • So I tried turning on the hardly ever used Toshiba PC laptop. I turn the thing on and it immediately is trying to sell me virus protection improvements. I already have virus protection. Apparently they want me to spend more. Turning this sonofabitch on is like going to a gas station where some dirtbag always asks you for some help “buying a bus ticket”.
  • Well, I find out that the laptop didn’t come with Windows Movie Maker installed. Never mind the fact that even 3 years ago when I bought it making movies on your computer was a pretty common thing to do. In typical Microsoft/PC fashion, they didn’t bother putting that on the computer. So I go to their download center, and it’s gonna take fucking 2 hours or so based on the snail-like movement of the progress bar to install ONE SIMPLE PROGRAM.  Well screw that. I force quit all the programs that were running and turn that bastard off. I wonder if I could gut it and use the case as a litter box for my cats.
  • Whilst all this bullshit is going on, I am trying my damnedest to remove a few songs from my iPod. Have you ever tried to do this? iTunes is one of the worst applications ever designed for actually managing your music and what is transferred to your portable device. It really makes me 1)sorry I have bought so much shit as downloads from the iTunes store, and 2)wishing I had just kept buying CDs, so I could move all that music to some other player/tablet/whatever. I wish I had all that music just saved as plain old MP3s, ripped from CDs, so I’d be less married to the iTunes system.  I feel like a wife whose husband beats the shit out of her, but he’s rich and she’s stuck there because she doesn’t want to start over. Yep. iTunes is an abusive spouse, and I am it’s bitch.

Now, you might be somewhat justified in pointing out that 7 years is pretty old for a laptop. That’s true. Congratulations – you have correctly assessed that factoid. HOWEVER — why, after me making no changes whatsofuckingever, does my setup for video not work anymore?

Out of 1 MacBook, one several-years-old Mac Mini, a Toshiba Windows/Shit PC, and $250 Google Chromebook, guess which device is operating as advertised? Yep. The cheap-ass Chromebook. It is limited in its function, but for its function is does great. No goddamn virus protection extortion racket. No shitty software. If this thing could edit video, audio, and hold my music, I would kiss all this other shit goodbye.

But sadly, as frustrated as I am finding some of the Apple products and software, they are still infinitely better than any PC available. The cheapest MacBook Air is better than any PC laptop you could get Santa to team up with the Devil and Einstein’s Ghost to build you. I may have to save up for one.

All this being said — Aikido and Skateboarding were awesome today — and this is all that really matters.

 

 

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Let’s Face It…

…Pop Music has generally always been pretty bad.

Last night as I sat in my command chair and web surfed, we had the Grammys on the television machine. As everyone with any good sense knew, it was going to be a night of pretty horrible performances (mostly), and it did not disappoint in that respect. Even the appearance of Willie Nelson on the Grammys stage was not enough to save the show.

Snarky tweeters the world over were delighted. Sarcastic Facebook posts abounded. Haters gonna hate, as the saying goes, and they were quite justified last night in doing so.

As I approach the tender age of 50, it becomes easier and easier to slip into old man grumpiness when it comes to music. Work and life have for many years conspired to keep me from discovering the great huge stupendous masses of incredibly good new music being produced out there by people young and old. Luckily, this thing called the internet exists and is a tool unequaled in the area of Good Music Discovery.

I was one of you grumpy old pricks for a long time. Listening only to my 30-year old music. Saying all the new stuff sucks. Oh, occasionally I’d find a “new” band (all old now) like Radiohead or Portishead or something else I liked a lot, but mostly it was the same old stuff. To be honest, I wasn’t really looking for new music. I guess I was past the age where you are regularly exposed to cool new music. How much good shit are you gonna learn about working in an office full of pinks? Your head, my dear reader, may be in the same sad place and situation.

But I have good news for you.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

On this blog I regularly refer to a man whom many would consider potentially the grumpiest old bastard ever when it comes to music. I’m talking about Henry Rollins. Not so. To paraphrase Henry, there is so much good music being produced you could listen all day, every day, and never even scratch the surface. He’s right.

The same forces of technology that allow you to web surf cute cat photos from the comfort of your IKEA chaise lounge (ordered online, of course), while having gourmet lattes delivered (and possibly fed) to you by a “little person” at any hour of the day or night, give you the power to invest a small amount of time in some research and find some great new music to add to your collection of Jimmy Buffett 8-tracks and that Foreigner reel-to-reel you ordered from the RCA Record Club when you were 13 (though you never actually got that reel-to-reel tape deck).

You see, in addition to the mostly-horrible hacks producing commercial drivel featured on the Grammys, at this moment thousands of humans around the globe are writing, producing, playing, and uploading fantastic music of pretty much any genre that might make your brain-stem tingle. Some are producing good new stuff that is genre-pure, meaning the rock doesn’t have rap in it, etc. Others are mixing/mashing/fusing musical styles in some fantastic ways.

A couple of years ago, when I rediscovered my interest in electronic music and decided to try my hand at it, I discovered a record label called Ghostly. They are producing some very cool stuff. A lot of it melds traditional instruments with electronica, and the artists on this label go a lot of different directions. Some I like, some I don’t, but the ones I like I like a lot. Thus far, my favorite Ghostly artist is Shigeto. You can read about him on that link. I’ll just say he blends a lot of styles in a most inventive way. To me, it is sort of like Jazz for the modern era. This young feller isn’t just sampling the hits of 30 years ago and remixing them. He’s creating his own music, with the tools of the modern electronic musician. In concert he plays drums live — so here you go — behold —

Now, I know some of you, in particular my friend Mike, will not find this to his personal liking. I’m pretty sure he won’t, because he likes songs with guitars about driving too fast and fighting and drinking, which is just fine. My point simply (or perhaps long-windedly) is that there are a lot of creative and talented musicians out there, who as in previous musical epochs you will never hear on the radio or see on the Grammys, or maybe you will — who the hell knows. You didn’t see them last night though. So get off your ass, grandpa, and find some new stuff to put on your iPod.

 

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Dear Korg – Request for next version of Kaoss Pad

For several years now I’ve been playing around with electronic music. I guess I actually started with music about 12 years ago with the guitar. I’m not very good on guitar. I practice a bit, and I can play the basic chords pretty well, but I’ve not taken any lessons to really improve my playing, or put the time in.

So a couple of years ago I discovered Korg’s Kaoss Pad products, which are sythesizers and effects controllers operated by touch pad. After watching some instructional and demo videos on youtube, I got them and tried it out. It’s really fun. I don’t claim to be good at writing songs, in fact I don’t write them, I just improvise. I don’t care. It’s all about fun.

pads3The effects controller of the setup is the Korg KP3 (the red one) — the third version of the Kaoss Pad. While it has a few built-in sounds (drums and synths), mostly what is does is take sound input from another source (another instrument, a microphone, or even an iPod) and allow you to manipulate and play with the sound with a wide variety of effects, such as delay, reverb, looping, flanger, modulation, and combinations of all of the above.  It also allows you to create sample loops — up to four of them — which are held in the machine’s memory and can be activated at any time. So the KP3 is a fun and easy device to use for live performance or recording.

OK — so I hope Korg is listening. They came out with a new version last year called the KP3+, on which they made a few programming changes to the device and added a few new effects. So it isn’t so much a “new version” as a slightly improved version of the old version. It seems like a lot of people are not upgrading — not enough benefit. I am one of those people. Can’t spend another $300+ dollars or whatever on a devices that is only a tiny fraction better than what I already have. They also came out with a handheld version of the Kaoss Pad, which is kind of cool, but much more limited and just not something very useful to me.

So Korg — here is a list of things I’d like to see on an fully updated/redesigned Kaoss Pad.

  1. I liked the little screen on the new mini Kaoss Pad (the Kaoss Pad 2) which allows you to easily read the names of the programs. A small screen like this would be a great addition to the KP3, as it is not easy to read the giant letters that scroll across the touch screen.
  2. More Loop Banks: Love the loop banks. Need more of them. The solution now is to chain another KP3 to the first one. Why not give a new version 8 loop banks — same size buttons as they work really well.
  3. Option for creating longer loops that are not constrained by the beats/timing of the machine: Kind of like a looping pedal for a guitar. Sometimes you want to be able to create a loop that is longer than the time available.
  4. The ability to apply an effect to one loop only, even if all the loops are playing, or to no loops and only apply the effect to the input current running in the Kaoss Pad.
  5. Any other cool stuff you geniuses can think of.

 

OK Korg-Friends — get on it! Thanks for your time.

 

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Doctor Who

When I was in highschool in the early 1980s, the local PBS station began showing Doctor Who. The D&D goobers at my school were super excited. I had never seen it. My first exposure to it was some tall geek at school walking the halls with his Doctor Who scarf. I asked my friend Brian what was the deal with Doctor Who. He said, and I paraphrase as I can’t remember his exact words, “it’s stupid and gay”.tom-baker-doctor-who

Upon closer examination, but not close enough to actually watch an episode,  I concluded that yes, it was gay. How can you look at a picture like this one and not conclude “gay”? At least when you are 16.

Now, keep in mind that I played D&D and all that stuff too. But I was part of a small group of friends who had been given the Gift of Shame, and we kept our gaming pretty quiet. We didn’t advertise our nerd tendencies. We were all reasonably attractive kids, so there was a possibility that girl might actually have some interest in one of us. This was way before the nerds took over the world and comic conventions hired models to dress up as sexy versions of super heroes to walk around creating nerd boners. Believe me, I went to a few “cons”, and I never saw a female that didn’t look like a Horta. And to dig myself out of the sexist hole I seem to be digging myself into, let me just admit that the dudes at the gaming and/or comic cons I attended mostly looked like the banjo kid from Deliverance. There’s nothing stranger (OK, maybe there is) than going to convention of comic book and gaming people and not looking the part. Cons are their domain, not yours (unless you are one of them). So if you go, and you look, act, and speak like a normal human, just chill. You are not in control there, and that’s OK. Just smile at the big fat green Orion Dancing Girl from Star Trek who is about explode out of her outfit. She’s not interested in you at all. You are not one of her people.

But I digress..

Well,  flash forward thirty-something years. My 13-year old  nephew told me a few weeks ago he was digging Dr. Who.

Now, I love this kid. He is about #2 in my list of favorite humanoids, second only to my wife. He’s a smart kid, who’s into science, and nature, and stuff like that. And I’m now 49 years of age, so I decided I would revisit Doctor Who, educating myself as to the show’s lore and mythos (see — good D&D words!), that I might watch a few episodes with the kid and enjoy them.

I watched a number of episodes, ranging from the first season to some of the more recent ones. Here are a few thoughts and observations based on my limited watching…

  • It’s not gay. It’s just British. It is easy to confuse the two.
  • I like it. Even though the effects are pretty cheesy in most of the seasons, it has some pretty cool concepts.
  • I like it that the Doctor isn’t a jock. He doesn’t fight, he doesn’t use a gun. He outwits his opponents.
  • The aliens and people from other times all have British accents.
  • The aliens who look like giant salt shakers with a plunger and cheese grater for arms and a vibrator for an eye are also cool.
  • The three guys who have played the Doctor in the new seasons are all younger and more hipsterish looking than the previous incarnations. I guess this makes the show my palatable to a modern audience. Can’t have any “old” people on there, can we.
  • The premise of the show involves both space and time travel, so it allows the writers to do damned near anything they want.
  • I think they stole the idea for Sid and Marty Croft’s “Lost Saucer” from Dr. Who.
  • When watching this show, don’t think about it too hard. Don’t worry about why someone would design an alien cyborg that only has one easy-to-damage eye. Don’t worry about shit like that. Just roll with it. Plunger for a hand? Yeah — ughhh — just ignore it.

So I’ll probably watch a few more of these shows. They are entertaining. The early ones are a bit slow-moving and hard to get through, I’ll admit, but not too bad.