I've got hell bound banshees on my trail
I'm haunted by goth girls. It's like some sort of fucking disease that I can't shake. I was thinking about it on the way into work this morning. I was listening to an old compilation cd of stuff from napster and there was this song called "goth girl" by some old 80s british band. That set off this whole train of though about what about them attracts me like a moth to a flame. A moth who would plunge directly into said flame, killing itself. White skin, black clothes, the occasional tattoo, black hair and skinny and sharp edged as can be. It flicks some sort of switch in my brain and I can't fight it. Nor do I want to. It is in my opinion most definitely a fetish in every sense of the word. I hate it, I love it. I can't do without it.
And who should follow me off the bus and into the building this morning? That cute french goth chick from the other department. I know how Robert Johnson felt when he had hell hounds on his trail.
I love my girl with all my heart. She embodies beauty and all things good to me. But dam those goth chicks get me hard.
Thursday, January 30, 2003
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Another freakout observed on my way to work this morning. At the corner by the skytrain I take is a company called "Trades Labour Company" which is a temp agency for workers. They line up every morning with their boots and hardhats and hope someone will hire them for the day to shovel shit or pound nails into boards. Or if they have the right papers, wire houses or do metal work for a little more that minimum wage. I admire them, they are there to work and earn their keep. It's all sorts waiting there in the rain every morning. Old men, young men, poor ragged drunks, clean cut immigrants. Even a clean cut young drunk or two. One of each.
So this morning this guy who looked like he'd be someone's young grandfather (about 52) is coming across the street towards me swinging his thermos and swearing up a storm. Then he proceeds to kick the living shit out of the pedestrian crossing light pole. Even with steel toe boots, that would hurt the feet. He was really going to town on the thing, trying to kick off the little walk button. And was kicking pretty high as well, must have had some karate classes in the past or something.
I guess they wouldn't give him work today. He wanted to work. He needs the money. He wanted to work. I admire him and his anger. He wanted to earn his keep.
It is still raining.
So this morning this guy who looked like he'd be someone's young grandfather (about 52) is coming across the street towards me swinging his thermos and swearing up a storm. Then he proceeds to kick the living shit out of the pedestrian crossing light pole. Even with steel toe boots, that would hurt the feet. He was really going to town on the thing, trying to kick off the little walk button. And was kicking pretty high as well, must have had some karate classes in the past or something.
I guess they wouldn't give him work today. He wanted to work. He needs the money. He wanted to work. I admire him and his anger. He wanted to earn his keep.
It is still raining.
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Debb was doing online, chat-based tech support a few years ago. I'm making up the technical details here because I don't remember them properly, but essentially, a user entered the help room and asked a question and the chat went something like this:
[user] how do i leave the program
[debb] Type "quit" at the prompt.
[user] where's the kyu
[debb] Pardon me?
[user] how do i type "kyu"
Debb stares at the screen for a moment and considers this. She responds:
[debb] It's next to the W and over the A.
[user] ok thanks
Then the user left.
[user] how do i leave the program
[debb] Type "quit" at the prompt.
[user] where's the kyu
[debb] Pardon me?
[user] how do i type "kyu"
Debb stares at the screen for a moment and considers this. She responds:
[debb] It's next to the W and over the A.
[user] ok thanks
Then the user left.
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
So I'm walking to work this morning in the pitch black (it was 6:30AM) and a thick fog (one block visibility). And this 20 something kid with a ballcap and a bag of McDonald's food is screaming his ass off at someone down the street (or invisible tormentors, not sure which at this point).
So I walk by him, clutching my umbrella to be used as a weapon at the first chance. I'm even imagining my first stance and open attack technique. But I walk by safely to the north, he heads south. A block later he comes running by at full tilt, making a clomp clomp noise that only rubber boots can. Ah....rubber boots. Remember getting your foot stuck in the muck behind the school? Remember trying to use the hockey rink boards as boats?
So then about half a block in front of me he proceeds to spike the bag of McDonald's food into the pavement and start screaming at someone again. I noticed that included in the food now being run over by traffic was two apple turnovers. Then he runs back past me again. I walk carefully making sure to casually look behind me once and a while.
On what little evidence I have, it looked like a lover's spat between two young gay men. And he had bought breakfest for the other, but love was jilted. Those two poor poor bastards. I really feel for them both. It must be rough to be a run over turn over.
So I walk by him, clutching my umbrella to be used as a weapon at the first chance. I'm even imagining my first stance and open attack technique. But I walk by safely to the north, he heads south. A block later he comes running by at full tilt, making a clomp clomp noise that only rubber boots can. Ah....rubber boots. Remember getting your foot stuck in the muck behind the school? Remember trying to use the hockey rink boards as boats?
So then about half a block in front of me he proceeds to spike the bag of McDonald's food into the pavement and start screaming at someone again. I noticed that included in the food now being run over by traffic was two apple turnovers. Then he runs back past me again. I walk carefully making sure to casually look behind me once and a while.
On what little evidence I have, it looked like a lover's spat between two young gay men. And he had bought breakfest for the other, but love was jilted. Those two poor poor bastards. I really feel for them both. It must be rough to be a run over turn over.
Friday, January 10, 2003
Thursday, January 09, 2003
Sullivan Waits Fan Page
I made this fan page because he deserves it. And then in 10 or 12 years I can say I was the first. Check it out, this guy is the shit.
I made this fan page because he deserves it. And then in 10 or 12 years I can say I was the first. Check it out, this guy is the shit.
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
Road Penn
This is the method Penn of "Penn & Teller" uses when going through the metal detector at the airport. If asked to step aside to be checked with the metal detector wand after passing through the walkthrough one, he simplies asks the wand holder "If I didn't set off the detector where do I go?" and they dismiss him and he walks on.
Brilliant. Dangerous, but brilliant.
This is the method Penn of "Penn & Teller" uses when going through the metal detector at the airport. If asked to step aside to be checked with the metal detector wand after passing through the walkthrough one, he simplies asks the wand holder "If I didn't set off the detector where do I go?" and they dismiss him and he walks on.
Brilliant. Dangerous, but brilliant.
Monday, January 06, 2003
I had a dream last night that I finally had the proof that the word "coffee" is also a verb. About 10 years ago my landlord to-be asked me if I was "trying to coffee him down" by offering less rent. I guess that use of the word has been bothering me ever since. I don't remember the details of the proof from my dream, but it involved something about how the root is from "cof" or "con"?
Fuck if I know.
Fuck if I know.
Thursday, January 02, 2003
2003 huh?
resolutions then.
last years list:
booze
listen
diet
music
meditate
exercise
reading
write
this years list:
booze
listen
diet
music
meditate
exercise
reading
write
how am i doing? let's focus on the positives shall we?
i hope i listen better, my new catch phrase is "i hear ya", debbie gives me listening lessons
my diet has improved dramatically in the last year. lite beer, no junk food and almost no red meat and I'm a soy freak
i'm still doing yoga on weekdays which covers exercise and meditate a little
i just finished neal young's bio, which counts big time. and about 6 other books last year
i'm writing this aren't i? that counts.
to improve upon:
no more beer, play the shak and work in the studio, and get outside once and while.
that would be good, that would improve my year.
hope your's improves too.
resolutions then.
last years list:
booze
listen
diet
music
meditate
exercise
reading
write
this years list:
booze
listen
diet
music
meditate
exercise
reading
write
how am i doing? let's focus on the positives shall we?
i hope i listen better, my new catch phrase is "i hear ya", debbie gives me listening lessons
my diet has improved dramatically in the last year. lite beer, no junk food and almost no red meat and I'm a soy freak
i'm still doing yoga on weekdays which covers exercise and meditate a little
i just finished neal young's bio, which counts big time. and about 6 other books last year
i'm writing this aren't i? that counts.
to improve upon:
no more beer, play the shak and work in the studio, and get outside once and while.
that would be good, that would improve my year.
hope your's improves too.
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Monday, December 23, 2002
Xmas:
It was about eight or nine years ago. I was living with Tony in a one bedroom apartment downtown. I hadn't been dating Cornelia for at least six months. I gave her some CDs for Xmas. She gave Tony and I a gift. It was a Chia Pet. But not a pet. A Chia Xmas tree. What a fucking useless piece of shit present if I ever got. Utter crap. What a daft bunt she was.
Merry Xmas.
It was about eight or nine years ago. I was living with Tony in a one bedroom apartment downtown. I hadn't been dating Cornelia for at least six months. I gave her some CDs for Xmas. She gave Tony and I a gift. It was a Chia Pet. But not a pet. A Chia Xmas tree. What a fucking useless piece of shit present if I ever got. Utter crap. What a daft bunt she was.
Merry Xmas.
Friday, December 20, 2002
> If you wish to draw conclusions about music for which we have absolutely
> no sources because nothing about it was recorded in its time and
> thousands of years have gone by in the interim, be my guest, but don't
> expect me to believe you.
I never have - that would imply that you had reached the point of initial
comprehension of the propositions I have made.
> Why not interpret it on its own terms rather than forcing it into boxes
> of today's harmony?
If have forced nothing into any box of "today's harmony". You simply form
the most crass and stereotypical representations of what I say and then
argue with yourself with be occasionally trying to butt in to this autistic
shadow-boxing process.
> These things occur much more frequently in Bach than in any of the above.
That's very sweet and quite probably true but also absolutely irrelevant to
any proposition I originally made.
> Basing an interpretation on no data, or worse, on "extrapolated" data,
> is pure speculation.
The presence of seven-note scales fitting over triads is not "no data" and
the use of the combination of evidence, reason, perception of patterns over
time etc. is allowed in my world.
If you want to interpret musical history, get to
> know musical history.
There's not a fat lot of it to know that impacts on the fundamental
questions of interpretation.
The bulk of your interpretation has been that it
> has been striving towards triadicism all along.
Rubbish. This "triadicism" mantra is just your way of avoiding hearing
anything I have actually proposed and substituting a crass and stereotypical
version in it's place.
> The data itself
> indicates that music, as a human activity, has long existed with no sense
> of incompleteness or imperfection from the lack of triads.
Pure speculation on people's sense of completeness/incompleteness and
perfection/imperfection with regard to the music of long-dead people's own
time.
Adding triadic
> accompaniment to the bulk of musics of the world is simply ruinous.
This is your hobby - not anything I've ever proposed nor having any bearing
on it.
> I don't care how exceptional you think the numbers LOOK. LISTEN to
> them. Play some of your favorite music on a keyboard in Pythagorian
> tuning. Form an opinion of the sound from hearing it.
If I did - it would not settle any question I have nor contradict anything I
have proposed. It would settle your argument with yourself (between your
beliefs and your crass misrepresentation of mine).
> The harmony in Perotin is extremely explicit. And in this harmony the
> major and minor triads are restless connective sounds.
Likewise.
> It directly addresses your claim that some composers "couldn't cope" with
> later harmonies unless sufficiently well-paid. The history of music
> shows us a very different picture.
Since I have never claimed either that some composers "couldn't cope" with
later harmonies nor that it had anything to do with *their* being
sufficiently well-paid or otherwise you are arguing with yourself about God
knows what again.
> >YES - absolutely. This is the crux of every other detail. The history shows
> >this absolutely clearly.
>
> Actually it doesn't---though you can ruin lots of monophonic music by
> supplying triads.
I have never suggested doing this. You've gone autistic again.
> And where harmony does show up, it shows up for long
> periods of time (e.g. 1000 years) without the fashion for triads.
> Triads are a fashion.
More autism bearing no relation to my propositions but anyway it's absurd to
designate something which has stuck since it's arrival a "fashion". I'll
take that seriously when I see them pass.
> >> my suggestion that you get your ear around a wider variety of music
> >I'd suggest that you learn to cope with the presence in the world of people
> >who interpret the same raw materials differently. I have already laid out
> >the explanation once on this newsgroup and there was not one person capable
> >of comprehending it. They neither said "this is great" nor (as with Kevin
> >Dean) "this is rubbish" only "why don't you get a website and spoonfeed us
> >with diagrams". None of them had the slightest inclination to take a brief
> >holiday from what they considered "the known" to look at music a different
> >way - you included.
>
> Ah, if it all comes down to your persecution complex, then ta ta.
Christ knows how you manage to read "persecution complex" in the above which
explicitly states the opposite.
> Good luck.
> There's nothing preventing you from adding triads to trouvere songs,
> shakuhachi solos, Gregorian chant, Torah trop, etc. Lots of us do it all
> the time. But we recognize that we're making a new art.
Why the hell I would want to do that is a mystery to me since it bears no
relation to anything I've said but I'm glad you've won the argument with
your version of me and settled the question of whether or not it's a "new"
art. Congratulations. May you have many future triumphant victories over
your crass and uncomprehending representations of other people's
propositions.
> no sources because nothing about it was recorded in its time and
> thousands of years have gone by in the interim, be my guest, but don't
> expect me to believe you.
I never have - that would imply that you had reached the point of initial
comprehension of the propositions I have made.
> Why not interpret it on its own terms rather than forcing it into boxes
> of today's harmony?
If have forced nothing into any box of "today's harmony". You simply form
the most crass and stereotypical representations of what I say and then
argue with yourself with be occasionally trying to butt in to this autistic
shadow-boxing process.
> These things occur much more frequently in Bach than in any of the above.
That's very sweet and quite probably true but also absolutely irrelevant to
any proposition I originally made.
> Basing an interpretation on no data, or worse, on "extrapolated" data,
> is pure speculation.
The presence of seven-note scales fitting over triads is not "no data" and
the use of the combination of evidence, reason, perception of patterns over
time etc. is allowed in my world.
If you want to interpret musical history, get to
> know musical history.
There's not a fat lot of it to know that impacts on the fundamental
questions of interpretation.
The bulk of your interpretation has been that it
> has been striving towards triadicism all along.
Rubbish. This "triadicism" mantra is just your way of avoiding hearing
anything I have actually proposed and substituting a crass and stereotypical
version in it's place.
> The data itself
> indicates that music, as a human activity, has long existed with no sense
> of incompleteness or imperfection from the lack of triads.
Pure speculation on people's sense of completeness/incompleteness and
perfection/imperfection with regard to the music of long-dead people's own
time.
Adding triadic
> accompaniment to the bulk of musics of the world is simply ruinous.
This is your hobby - not anything I've ever proposed nor having any bearing
on it.
> I don't care how exceptional you think the numbers LOOK. LISTEN to
> them. Play some of your favorite music on a keyboard in Pythagorian
> tuning. Form an opinion of the sound from hearing it.
If I did - it would not settle any question I have nor contradict anything I
have proposed. It would settle your argument with yourself (between your
beliefs and your crass misrepresentation of mine).
> The harmony in Perotin is extremely explicit. And in this harmony the
> major and minor triads are restless connective sounds.
Likewise.
> It directly addresses your claim that some composers "couldn't cope" with
> later harmonies unless sufficiently well-paid. The history of music
> shows us a very different picture.
Since I have never claimed either that some composers "couldn't cope" with
later harmonies nor that it had anything to do with *their* being
sufficiently well-paid or otherwise you are arguing with yourself about God
knows what again.
> >YES - absolutely. This is the crux of every other detail. The history shows
> >this absolutely clearly.
>
> Actually it doesn't---though you can ruin lots of monophonic music by
> supplying triads.
I have never suggested doing this. You've gone autistic again.
> And where harmony does show up, it shows up for long
> periods of time (e.g. 1000 years) without the fashion for triads.
> Triads are a fashion.
More autism bearing no relation to my propositions but anyway it's absurd to
designate something which has stuck since it's arrival a "fashion". I'll
take that seriously when I see them pass.
> >> my suggestion that you get your ear around a wider variety of music
> >I'd suggest that you learn to cope with the presence in the world of people
> >who interpret the same raw materials differently. I have already laid out
> >the explanation once on this newsgroup and there was not one person capable
> >of comprehending it. They neither said "this is great" nor (as with Kevin
> >Dean) "this is rubbish" only "why don't you get a website and spoonfeed us
> >with diagrams". None of them had the slightest inclination to take a brief
> >holiday from what they considered "the known" to look at music a different
> >way - you included.
>
> Ah, if it all comes down to your persecution complex, then ta ta.
Christ knows how you manage to read "persecution complex" in the above which
explicitly states the opposite.
> Good luck.
> There's nothing preventing you from adding triads to trouvere songs,
> shakuhachi solos, Gregorian chant, Torah trop, etc. Lots of us do it all
> the time. But we recognize that we're making a new art.
Why the hell I would want to do that is a mystery to me since it bears no
relation to anything I've said but I'm glad you've won the argument with
your version of me and settled the question of whether or not it's a "new"
art. Congratulations. May you have many future triumphant victories over
your crass and uncomprehending representations of other people's
propositions.
Thursday, December 19, 2002
Last night I saw Peter Gabriel perform live.
Fucking incredible.
He ran in circles, road a bike, walked upside down and sped around in a giant hamster ball.
Tony on bass, Rhodes on guitar and his daughter on backup vocals.
Played old and new songs.
Loved it.
but....
Why do people need to draw attention to themselves? Everyone there paid $111 to pay attention to Peter. So why do you need to scream, yell, whistle, dance or have long and involved converstations behind me? Is it sitting in the dark without someone listening to you for more than 5 minutes? Why do you need some of that attention turned to you? Is it a competition? If your mouth stops moving does your brain start working?
Why?
Peter kicked ass. That old man can rock.
Fucking incredible.
He ran in circles, road a bike, walked upside down and sped around in a giant hamster ball.
Tony on bass, Rhodes on guitar and his daughter on backup vocals.
Played old and new songs.
Loved it.
but....
Why do people need to draw attention to themselves? Everyone there paid $111 to pay attention to Peter. So why do you need to scream, yell, whistle, dance or have long and involved converstations behind me? Is it sitting in the dark without someone listening to you for more than 5 minutes? Why do you need some of that attention turned to you? Is it a competition? If your mouth stops moving does your brain start working?
Why?
Peter kicked ass. That old man can rock.
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
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Tuesday, April 3, 2001 No one's laughing By MICHELLE LANG of The Leader-Post Neil Ross woke up Saturday morning to read h...