On Being Incorrect

(Delay on new PC, must post...still on old beast)
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One of the things that I lost when my PC crashed was the outline and a few sketchy chapters of an aborted book. I was attempting to examine life using the language of sound as a symbol system...my basic premise was that each individual contains a recording studio within themselves and that the skills, equipment and techniques used to record audio all have counterparts in both the real and philosophical worlds- for example:

Click Track: In recording, a 'click track' is essentially a metronome. It is used to keep musicians playing at a consistent tempo. It steadies the musician-an erratic click track will derail them.

In the real world, we have a number of different 'click tracks' and they tend to play at different tempos: family, art, work, love- these are all 'click tracks'. By deciding which tempo gets assigned to which track, we set our priorities in life.


On a philosophical level, a 'click track' could be viewed as passion or faith. For example, I cannot prove that John Bonham used a click track while Led Zeppelin were recording Physical Graffiti, but my passion for sound causes me to take it as faith that he did- in a way ,this parallels an individual's faith in their religion, the believer accepting as faith the unprovable 'fact' that the Divine Click Track is there and on-time.

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That's a very abbreviated, informal version.

After a few chapters of stuff like that, I bogged down and could go no further and eventually I gave up. When my PC died, I wasn't especially upset over losing my roughs, the whole thing had dead-ended.

Until.

I had a breakthrough.
My approach was incorrect on a very basic level.

We are not 'recording studios'. We are sound itself.
We are waves and energy. Electrical, physical energy.
We are, in the jargon of audio, the source.
The world around us is the recording studio and each person is continually recording their own concept album, a process which invariably requires a lifetime to complete.

Here is a quick look at how I look at working with sound :

The idea is to get the source (usually music) to the destination ( usually a set of speakers, in my case it is sometimes a radio transmitter) as quickly and cleanly as possible. To do this, one must understand signal flow, which is the path that the sound takes as it travels from source to destination.
Sometimes there are obstacles, but there are tools available for dealing with problems as they arise- or preventing them altogether( a chapter about EQ, Compression, Gates and Dynamic Processing to follow)
Once you are comfortable with your signal flow, you can experiment with echo, delay and other Time-Based FX. Usually, you won't need them, but it's fun to know how they work anyway.

If a problem persists, trace the source carefully through every stage of it's signal flow. Do not take any component for granted as 'working', test them all. Eventually, you will find the stage where the sound stops or breaks down.
Once it is identified, you address it by applying whatever repair or replacement is needed.
If the broken element adds nothing, remove it entirely and continue without it.

It's my feeling that this basic audio approach can be applied to real-life situations with very effective results.
For example, I've been dealt a huge number of setbacks over the last several months, any one of which would have, in the past, been a trigger for me to drink and self-punish instead of fixing my signal flow.
Fuck. That.

I'm tracing my path and removing the junk that doesn't work.
My PC crash isn't so much a tragic loss as it is a vital step in the cleansing of my signal flow. If I can learn to accept the loss of things that are precious to me, I should, as a result, be able to let go of things that aren't precious (or even healthy) to me.

If something isn't perfect the first time, record it again and again until it sounds right. It's quite a bit of work, but it's worth it.

After all, it's the song of a lifetime.

Last Post

This is a picture of the reflection of my camera in a pane of glass. In the background is The Sort, a local band that played at the station Saturday...they played without their drummer and second guitarist, which was new for them, but they pulled it off well. Great lyrics, they made me laugh while I was mixing them...it was fun. The songs on the website feature the entire band...Laura, the singer, is a Scrabble wiz who insists on grammatically correct lyrics- for rock music! Cool.
I wanted to take more pics, but my camera's memory was full...a sign of things to come.

When I left the station I saw a bright pink blotch on the side of my car, which was parked across the street. To my dismay, I found that someone had hurled a pink sticky mess (?) at my drivers' door. It was like liquid bubble gum, all sticky and smeary ; it took a while to clean off. My mirror is bent and screwy.

But hey, my PC works, right? Except the internet part. I couldn't connect -ERROR 678!

I needed my DNS and gateway mask #'s, whatever the hell they are- "contact ISP provider or network admin"...crap.
I had to call 24/7 tech support, wait on hold for three hours-literally- but I eventually reached a really helpful tech, he quickly gave me my #'s and a $25 credit for having to wait so long- I typed in the DNS etc and logged on. (I wrote my #'s down in case this happens again)

Then I put together a show for the morning and almost forgot to sleep...I woke up and heard the radio robot playing when there should have been a live DJ...I skipped my shower and drove down to the studio and found that DJ Gospel had forgotten his keys and was locked out...I told him I was sick of covering his ass, that he is late too often and he needed to shape up. He got kinda pissed but I honestly don't care. He's fucking up and I'm sick of it.

Anyway, I had my own show:

The New Breakfast Snob, March 30

The Beatles- Across The Universe/Norwegian Wood
Nothing's gonna change my world...nothing. Bonus song for McRaven.

Neil Young- Lotta Love
For some reason I'm playing a lot of songs about trying to work it out.

Funkadelic- Let's Make it Last

Al Stewart- On The Border
Alvin Lee- Education
I love Alvin's new CD, Sagguitarius

BB King- Nobody Here But Us Chickens
Pink Floyd- Astronomy Domine
Loreena McKinnett- Mummer's Dance

Claanad- Love and Affection
Marianne Faithfull- Ruby Tuesday
Marianne had reputation for doing Rolling Stones...and their songs

Bob Dylan - Meet Me in the Morning
Muddy Waters- Please Don't Go
The Kinks- Low Budget
Say it Again!

Bob Marley- Crazy Bald Head

Lou Reed- NY Telephone Conversation
Queen - Bicycle
Gary Numan- Are Friends Electric?
Pink Floyd - Have a Cigar
Nick Drake- Pink Moon
Faces- Around the Plynth
Muddy Waters- Hootchie Kootchie Man
Gong- Heaven's Gate
Steeleye Span- Callin-on Song/Blacksmith
Les Paul & Mary Ford- The World is Waiting
Pretty Things- October 26
Les Paul & Chet Atkins- Lazy River
Jethro Tull-Nothing Is Easy
Miles Davis & John Coltrane- Two Bass Hit

Whew! Now to go home and work on my PC.
Crap. I can't sign in. I know my password...denied. Denied. Denied.

I notice that when I tap one key, several 'bullets' appear in the field. Hmm...I take the keyboard back to the station, plug it into a PC and open Notepad. When I hit 'S', the characters 'sa/' appear...when I hit 'A', I get ' za/' and so on...fortunately there are lots of used, donated keyboards...I grab one and go home.
Log in successful!
It only took a few hours.

I visit my Aunt and Uncle on my maternal side later that day and tell my aunt of my PC woes. She tells me that they have a nice, almost new PC that isn't getting used and she'd get it cleaned up so I could have it tomorrow. It's way, way nicer than mine.

She's an IT consultant and says that it sounds like I had a Trojan virus...it eats your registry and wipes everything clean. Very nasty.
How to avoid it?
Stay disconnected from the web. Abstinence is the only safe surfing.

This will probably be my last post from this PC.

But not my last post.

Start Over

Above: What a section of my PC music library used to look like. This is how I 'sort' my songs.

Then there was this. It was supposed to be a non-destructive recovery. Instead, what happened was the complete eradication of all the data on my PC.
All data, including Windows itself. It was a suicidal recovery.


The Downsides:
-My PC's original 40-gig hard drive crashed and burned, taking the contents of my 180GB secondary drive with it. Except for a pitiful handful of CD backups, I lost eight years of data, including irreplaceable personal photographs, writings and music . I spent years scanning old photos, transferring music from deteriorating tapes to digital...converting records to mp3...downloading songs...accumulating blog fodder. I had thousands of songs- enough to do any sort of radio show...aargh...some are on CD, scattered across a shoebox full of mix discs, but most are are gone forever...the computer programs that helped me find songs; to scan them for viruses ; to record 'streamed' tunes; to edit them for airplay etc - all gone.
I can't even open a simple PDF, much less edit .wav files.
I'm gonna be downloading and installing for a long, long time...

- I had more car trouble, but I fixed it OK; however,I managed to inflict a wound on my pinkie finger that probably should have been stitched...two days later it's still bleeding a little. Ow.

-I lost every program and application I had; all of my saved games ; all my bookmarks and settings...the music editing software that I have relied on for years is gone and I can't afford to replace it...1,000 unfinished novels (most still in the 'Title' stage, heh), gone forever...I lost three years of radio recordings...I can't open Word docs or Excel sheets...the list is as painful as it is long.

Long...

... installing Widows updates is taking forever. One of ninety-two? 91 to go? Fuck.


Upsides:

-My pal Blake was able to install Windows on my 180GB drive and get my PC running again. He fed me a home-cooked meal too, so big kudos to him!

-I'm getting Office Suite soon, so at least I will be able open Word docs etc.

- Gmail is a good back-up. I found a copy of my resume attached to an old email .
Also, I can recover a few choice songs from other emails and my calendar is still intact.

-In the middle of all this PC hell, I got a call for a job interview next week. I don't wanna jinx myself, but damn, it's hard to get an interview these days, so it's something to look forward to...more to follow if it pans out.

-I have 160 pics saved on my camera, including some featuring my Grandmother that I want to save forever -and the two above.

- I found out that I have friends here, in real life and here in blogville. I don't know why I keep forgetting that...it's a known issue and I'm working on it as best I can.

- I wasn't an informed consumer when I bought my PC back in 2000-ish. I thought that having a lot of 'value-added' software on a new PC was a good thing. It is not.
I wound up with a ton of useless crap that did nothing but slow my rig down.
My PC used to have 40-45 processes running at any given time...I had problems with games, large music files, Youtubes etc...now, with all that extra crap gone, I'm running 22-25 at a time and my ancient relic of a machine is fucking flying (at least by my low standards)... over the years I have spent a lot of time and money on new hardware and have not been overly thrilled with the minor improvements- but without all that extra crap, it zips right along...a PC from the year 2000 that can handle Pentium 4 programs? Sweet.

The thing to do, given the chance, would be to save everything you wanted to keep onto an external drive and then build a computer from scratch ( a lot easier than you might think) , then load the external drive onto your new PC.
Note: Start with a good firewall and a resident anti-virus scanner.

(Or buy a Mac)

So, I lost almost everything but at least I have 175 gigs of quick-acting hard drive to run around in and fill up with anything I choose...you can fit a lot of music on 175 gigabytes!


I'll be around soon... now I have to get my printer working again.....and find drivers for my sound card...and video...

Peace be with.

That's All

Last night my eight-year old PC died. Total crash, I can't fix it.

No blogging.

I will have to check my email wherever I can and hope for the best.

Sound Off

Converting LPs to MP3s , Rube Goldberg style. Don't laugh- it works!



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There was an angry post here.

A good friend was able to shift my mood so dramatically that I felt compelled to retract it...instead of complaining about what is wrong, we are gonna fix it.
We.
I'm not as alone as I thought I was. I have been alone for so long that I have forgotten how to be any other way ; I had resigned myself to the fact that there is no hope for change and that no one will ever care...or so I thought.

I'm wrong about stuff sometimes, y'know?
So. Cool.

I'll save my anger for politics. I'm smiling and don't have time for it now.

Later.

4,000

The Triumph of Death, Pieter Bruegel, 1562

Rabies on an Upswing

Do possums attack people? I sure as hell hope so.

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Animism:

1.	the belief that natural objects, natural phenomena, and the universe itself possess souls.

2.	the belief that natural objects have souls that may exist apart from their material bodies.

3.	the doctrine that the soul is the principle of life and health.

4.	belief in spiritual beings or agencies.

Secular:

1.	of or pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal.

2.	not pertaining to or connected with religion.

I have combined these two disparate concepts into a unified whole, a belief system that works for me : Secular Animism.

Dude, you might say, that doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't have to make sense. That's where this comes in handy...

Faith:

1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

I suppose Secular Animism could be defined thusly:

1. the belief that natural objects, natural phenomena, and the universe itself exist.

This, I admit, is a pretty dull foundation for a religion. In fact, when you take animism and strip away all the parts about 'souls' and spirituality, you are essentially left with little more than science, which can be dreadfully academic. Science also requires proof, which tends to preclude faith.
Proof is also hard work, so we will exclude it and leave science to Dr. Moreau, Dr. Doom and their egg-headed ilk.

In lieu of proof, I proffer possum.


The New Breakfast Snob, March 23, 2008:

Claanad- The Hunter
Is there an award for reverb?

Alvin Lee- The Rapper
Ten Years After twenty years later.

Stranglers- Hallow to Our Men
From 'The Gospel According to the Men in Black'.

Damien Dempsey- Celtic Tiger
Greed. What is it good for?

Pentangle- Storyteller
Deep Purple- Hush
Savoy Brown- Poor Girl
Neil Young- Motorcycle Mama

Damien Dempsey- Colony
I sing the song of the colony
How many years and you're still not free
And your mother cries and you ask god why
Greed is the knife and the scars run deep
How many races with much reason to weep
And your children cry
And you ask god why

I look to the east, I look to the west
To the north and the south, and I'm not too impressed
Time after time
After crime after crime
They raped, robbed, pillaged, enslaved and murdered
Jesus Christ was their god and they done it in his name
So he could take the blame if it's not all a game
With bible in one hand and a sword in the other
They came to purify my land of my Gaelic Irish mothers
And fathers, and sisters and brothers
With our own ancient customs, laws, music, art
Way of life and culture
Tribal in structure
We had a civilisation
When they were still neanderthal nations
We suffer with the Native American, the Indian in Asia
Aboriginal Australia
The African people with their history so deep
And our children still weep and our lives are still cheap

You took what was not yours
Went against your own bible
You broke your own laws
Just to out do the rival
But did you ever apologize
For the hundreds and millions of lives
You destroyed and terrorised
Or have you never realized
Did you never feel shame
For what was done in your country's name
And find out who's to blame and why they were so inhumane
And still they teach you in your school
About those glorious days of rule
And how it's your destiny to be
Superior to me
But if you've any kind of mind
You'll see that all human kind
Are the children of this earth
And your hate for them will chew you up and spit you out

-Damien Dempsey

Whoa. Then I played a few choice snippets of Patti Smith...you know the ones.

Great Big Sea - End of the World
Well, I played 'Colony' and Patti Smith on Easter and lightning didn't strike me dead...but if it had...

John Prine- Please Don't Bury Me
I'm donating myself to science. Unless my cats eat me first.

Velvet Underground- Lonesome Cowboy Bill
Gentle Giant- As old as You're Young
Emerson, Lake & Palmer- Hoedown
Jethro Tull- Moths
Grace Slick & Paul Kantner- Earth Mother
Fiona Joyce- Cry Over You
Frank Zappa- St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast Medley
Steve Hillage- Wait One Moment
Dude. Collect yourself into the Cosmic Power of the Great Healing Wave or something...Hillage is a fantastic guitarist but he would make a lousy secular animist.

Nouvelle Vouge- In A Manner of Speaking
Brian Eno -Mother Whale Eyeless
Altan- Eoghainin O Ragdain
Mr. Acker Bilk - Easter Parade

Roy Buchanan- I Won't Tell You No More Lies
Dude, that's a double negative. Perhaps that is why this song is an instrumental.

Pretty Things- God Give Me The Strength To Carry On
Amen, y'all.

Have a Happy Day, Holy or otherwise.

Dit Heads

Do you know what a 'Ditto-Head' is? A dithead is a follower of media crackpot Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh's acolytes call themselves Ditto Heads because they unquestioningly agree with and repeat every word that Limbaugh says. A dithead has no personal opinion or convictions of their own, they are merely an echo of whatever they've been told by people like Rush; ditheads are utterly incapable of learning on their own, they can only repeat what has been said.

Lately, I've heard them repeating this old lie : "War is Good For The Economy".

Bullshit.

Unless you are a shareholder in Exxon-Mobil, Bechtel, Halliburton et.al., how exactly has the current war helped you financially? Lower prices? Rising equity in your home? A stable job? Better, safer schools for your children? Improved healthcare? Lower crime rates? A stronger dollar?
How has the war helped you, personally?

A dithead might point out that there have been no terrorist bombings here since 2001. That's irrelevant- we have moved the mountain to Mohamed, so to speak, as we approach 4,000 war dead...besides, with our money spent and our National Guard deployed internationally, we can barely protect ourselves from the weather and our own crumbling infrastructure. Why would terrorists bother to do what we are already doing to ourselves?

(Then there's the impending Bay Area earthquake...in fairness, seismology is non-partisan. When this happens, there will be no one party or person to blame. It will be Hayward's fault.)




Rush likes to claim that he "Rules the Country", but a Jew named Bernard Baruch once wielded more power and influence than Rush could ever hope to attain...Rush's influence extends mainly to uneducated white trash ; Baruch served as adviser to Presidents, including two Presidents that actually won wars: Woodrow Wilson and FDR.

Baruch, among many other things, was a member of the National War Labor Board during WWI and WWII... Baruch , as a businessman himself, was not generally in favor of meddlesome government intervention in industry, but he understood that in times of war and crisis, the interests of business ( and labor) should be secondary to the health and preservation of the nation and it's principles, a philosophy that stands in direct contradiction to the current Bush Regime policy of protecting corporations (the telecom scandal for example) from the citizens.

During WW II Baruch advocated recycling as a method to conserve resources, he proposed price controls to keep inflation in check, he endorsed using collective bargaining as a means of maintaining balance between labor unions and their employers and he was one of the first financiers to speak about developing domestic alternatives to foreign oil, mainly the development of corn-based alternatives...this new source was to be used to manufacture synthetic rubber tires, tires being in high demand during both wars...Baruch lost that particular battle and oil, not ethanol became the primary ingredient in synthetic rubber; petroleum alternatives remain underdeveloped to this day.

To help prevent Federal bankruptcy during WWII, Baruch suggested a "pay-as-you-go" approach to government spending, prophetically arguing that a huge National debt would be threat to National security. He stated that the practice of 'free enterprise' would not serve the country well during the war and that victory should be placed ahead of profit.

America did win two World Wars while following Baruch's advice on collective bargaining, price and wage controls and 'green' (a term that hadn't been coined yet) resource management.





What kind of man was Bernard Baruch? Probably not the kind that Limbaugh would support.

At WWI's end in 1919, Baruch personally paid for a train ticket home for each of the hundreds of women who held wartime jobs in his Washington DC offices, giving each woman a postcard to mail to him upon their safe arrival home- by today's standards, this gesture might seem condescending and sexist, but in 1919 there were precious few ways for a single woman to make money in an American city (women were not even allowed to vote until 1920) and Baruch didn't wish to see his disbanded clerical staff forced into the "street life", so he paid -out of his pocket- for their safe return home.

Limbaugh, on the other hand, used his maid to score Oxycontin for himself.

And of course, there's fellow neo-con spokesmouth Bill O'Reilly, sued for making obscene calls to female staffers...those two guys would hate probably hate Bernard Baruch even if Baruch were not a Jew.

Anyway...


In WWII , the War Labor Board help introduce some labor practices that were unheard of at that time. One of those ideas was that of "equal pay for equal work".

The War Labor Board (WLB) and its predecessor, the National Defense Mediation Board, had a profound impact on relations between employers and unions during World War II. The WLB—made up of representatives from government, labor, and management—provided protection for unions from hostile bosses, increased the wages of the lowest-paid workers, helped set industry-wide wage patterns, and established methods of resolving shop floor disputes. Although the WLB operated in routinized and bureaucratic ways, its decisions could also carry powerful ideological messages. That became clear in the following document, which insisted upon the policy of equal pay for equal work—a seemingly self-evident principle that was not standard practice in American industry. This board decision mandated equal pay for women.

From a 1943 opinion set forth by the NWLB:

...

the National War Labor Board abolishes the classifications “colored laborer” and “white laborer” and reclassifies both simply as “laborers” with the same rates of pay for all in that classification without discrimination on account of color. The Negro workers in this classification are hereby granted wage increases which place them on a basis of economic parity with the white workers in the same classification. This wage increase is made... with regard simply for the democratic formula of equal pay for work equal in quantity and quality in the same classification. This equalization of economic opportunity is not a violation of the sound American provision of differentials in pay for differences in skills. It is rather a bit of realization of the no less sound American principle of equal pay for equal work as one of those equal rights in the promise of American democracy regardless of color, race, sex, religion, or national origin.

Conservatives- many of them Democrats- didn't like these ideas. During the next twenty years, a great many Democrats, most of them Southern, would leave their party and join the GOP, helping give rise to what was known as the Southern Strategy , among other things...


There have been other, better known figures who have warned us of what would happen if the War Business eclipsed the business of war. The most famous of those is none other than Republican President and retired Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a man who left office with deep misgivings about the Cold War and the industry that helped maintain it.

Ike's 1961 farewell address should be required reading in the American classroom:

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

Any failure traceable to arrogance or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us a grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

I can think of many adjectives to describe persons who happily call themselves 'Ditto Heads' but
"alert " and "knowledgeable" are not on that list. I actually visited Limbaugh's site and found that links to much of the source material Limbaugh uses for his blathering are available only to those who are willing to register themselves as Ditto Heads...I thought that the suppression of information was considered un-American, but what the hell do I know?
I am not a dithead.

News at Five

December 7, 1946, the fifth anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor:
A bedraggled President Harry S. Truman addresses a frustrated, angry American public; attempting to mollify the citizens, Truman points out that the number of Japanese attacks on Hawaii have dropped in recent months and that at some point in the next one hundred years Hawaii will become a safe, hospitable vacation destination.
As he delivers this speech, a Japanese torpedo bomber sinks a small American tourist vessel, killing seven; including a movie star and a millionaire and his wife.

Three days later, amid a roar of public outrage, Truman resigns in disgrace.



Obviously, I made that up. But one needn't make stuff up if one wants to experience the falsification of history- one needs only listen to BushCo as it describes our "victory" in Iraq.
Once again, the mission is accomplished, whatever it was.

He said recent troop reinforcements had brought about "a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror".The speech comes amid criticism in the US of the war, with some opponents pointing to its high cost. In his speech, Mr Bush dismissed what he called "exaggerated estimates".

He said: "The costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq."

I am not sure what he means by that last statement. Since most of our enemies in Iraq are Iraqis, Bush seems to be arguing that our multi-trillion dollar expenditure is justifiable because it's costing the Iraqis a bundle too. Think about that.


Bush points to our progress:

Mr Bush argued that fighting Islamic militants in Iraq helped to prevent attacks on targets in the US.

"The terrorists who murder the innocent in the streets of Baghdad want to murder the innocent in the streets of American cities," he said.

Meanwhile, as Bush was speaking of "terrorists who murder the innocent in the street":

..near the northern city of Kirkuk, US troops shot dead three Iraqi policemen by mistake, an incident officials described as "a tragic accident, which was sincerely regretted".


Oops. Sorry about that.

On Monday, Dick Cheney went to Iraq to discuss the progress we are making towards "freedom and security" , but his visit was overshadowed by a series of bombings and mortar attacks that left at least 78 Iraqis dead.

The UN reports that the number of Iraqis applying for asylum doubled from 2006 to 2007:

Iraqis were the largest group among asylum seekers to the world's industrialised countries for the second year running, according to a UN report.

More than 45,000 Iraqis applied for asylum in 2007, up from 22,900 in 2006, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said. But they make up only 1% of some 4.5 million Iraqis uprooted by war.

Math Time:

4.5 million Iraqis displaced by the war = 4.5 million Iraqis who have lost their homes due to the actions of the United States= 4.5 million Iraqis with a legitimate grudge against the USA.

When those 4.5 million refugees speak to their children of America, what sort of tone do you think that they will use?

What will they say?

"God Bless America?"

The Luck of the Irish

What could be luckier than having your death sentence commuted?
Back in ye olde days, if an Irishman on Death Row was lucky, he could avoid the gallows by taking advantage of the Crown's travel program known as 'transportation'; a practice which provided poor persons and criminals with wealthy landowners that they could work for in exotic locales such as Van Diemen's Land; Sydney; Georgia or Boston.

Irish women were also 'transported' . Lucky them.


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Back in 1960, political pundits were asking this question: " Is America ready to elect an Irish Catholic to the office of President?"
We were, and John F. Kennedy moved into the White House.

Things didn't work out so well for JFK personally, but one thing is certain:
We are really lucky that George Bush wasn't President during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

There's a striking parallel between the question asked in 1960 and a certain question being raised during the current election season.
If we are lucky, the answer will be 'yes' and the parallels will end there.

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I played a great many songs on the radio this weekend. If you were lucky, you heard:

The New Breakfast Snob, 16 March, 2008

Snakefinger- 36-22-36
Alvin Lee- Education
Sharon Shannon-Blackbird
Jethro Tull- Cold Wind To Valhalla
Loreena McKinnett- Gates of Istanbul
Soft Boys- When I was a Boy
Alan Parsons- Hyper-Gamma Space
Jeff Beck-Freeway Jam
Moving Hearts- The Storm
Television- Prove It
Pretty Things- Pure Cold Stone
Iron Butterfly- Shady Lady
Claanad- Together We
XTC- Dear God
Steeleye Span- Lowlands of Holland
Fairport Convention- Tam Lin
Pogues-Sunny Side/Sayanora
Pentangle- Hunting Song
Claanad- Poison Glen
Maire Brennan- Against The Wind
Damien Dempsey- The Jar Song
One of my fellow DJs has started playing Dempsey! A convert! Take that, St. Pat!

The 12 Fl. Oz. Show, Monday 17 March

I play quite a bit of Irish and Celtic music on my own weekly show so I found it ironic that I was acting as guest DJ for an Americana show on St. Patrick's Day.
As a DJ, I tend to look at St. Patrick's Day the same way that an alcoholic looks at New Year's Eve- it's the one day that the rest of the world follows my lead...anyway, the playlist:

Les Paul and Chet Atkins- Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Little Feat- Oh Atlanta!
Tornados...OZ...Atlanta...nevermind.

Ken Nordine- Green
Papa John Creach- Enjoy
Mem Shannon- S.U.V
Johnny Cash- Personal Jesus
Marcy -The Gospel Express
Roy Clark- Steel Guitar Rag
Sandy Nelson -The Boss Beat
John Prine - Sweet Revenge
Sam Bush- Howlin' at the Moon
This song mentions Heaven and moon-howling...Christianity and Animism!
Holy 'Dual'ing Banjoes, Batman!

Steve Earle- Hillbilly Highway
Big Brother & Holding Co. - I'll Change Your Flat Tire, Merle
Granpa Jones & Friends- Pft, You Were Gone
This is from Hee Haw.
Bill Anderson- The Reverend Mr. Black
Ken Nordine- Yellow
Steve Earle & Del McCloury- Dixieland

Mitch H. Price- Shopping Mall Moan
Flaming Groovies- Jailbait
R. Crumb- Confessions of R.Crumb
Ten Years After-Baby Won't Let Me Rock and Roll ya?

X- Come Back To Me
Ken Nordine- Flesh
Les Paul & Chet Atkins- Lazy River
Mitch H. Price- Save me a Slice of That
Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown & Roy Clark- Tobacco Road
Hot Tuna- Ode to Billy Dean
Steve Earle-Galway Girl
Factoid: Ireland and Scotland are two different places.

Mitch H. Price - Voodoo
Steve Earle & the Pogues -Token Drinking Song
Leo Kottke- Morning is a Long Way Home
Tony Trishka & Bela Fleck- John Hardy
Lucinda Williams- Concrete & Barbed Wire
Billy Pilgrim- Dominique
Roy Clark- Under the Double Eagle
Honest to Baal, Roy Clark is one awesome MFing guitarist. Clark's rendition of this John Phillip Sousa classic is nothing short of amazing.
Buck Owens and Roy Clark- Turkey in the Straw



Good Night and Good Luck.

Known Issues

Fuckity. After all that work it turned out that there was a major malfunction in our broadcast signal. We broadcast in mono, which is supposed to be a combination of the stereo signal from the CD, record etc. For three years this was the case and all was well.

But the new console was acting strangely and only sending the 'left' channel to the airwaves- in other words, if you are playing a stereo recording of two guitarists- one in the left speaker and the other in the right- the listener would only hear one of the players... in a stereo record of a piano solo, the listener only hears the left hand, the right hand is very faint...there are a lot of technical and musical reasons why this is a major problem.
To me, anyway.
It didn't seem like a big deal to most of the people I talked to, but for the kind of records I play it's a show-killer. Try listening to a two- guitar band like Television, Soft Boys, Quicksilver, the Clash or XTC with one of the guitars barely audible...it sucks.

The station email that went out pretty much said: " yeah, we know it's a problem and we are gonna order a new part and devise a plan to install that part", which sounds like a good idea except that our little station tends to do things by forming committees, having meetings, using the Dry Erase board etc; this is a good way for accomplishing some goals, but not , in my opinion, the best approach for dealing with critical issues effecting our actual live, real-time signal.

So I listened to my buddy Buzzy's show yesterday (he plays a lot of cool old 60's guitar rock that I dig) and I kept wondering "where are the guitar solos? " , "isn't there a second vocal on this song?" etc etc...it was hard to listen to. We have been bragging about our new studio and it doesn't even work right...fuck.

I know how to operate gear. I can coax great audio out of bad crap and I'm a master of unorthodox 'work-arounds', but I'm no electrician. Our new console requires electrical skills to change the internal settings (there are no knobs and such as are found on a recording console) , so we would have to wait until we got the part and then find time for one of our skilled volunteers to wire the thing into the circuit...who knows how long that could take? The email indicated that we might have to temporarily broadcast from the old studio...WTF?
I have two shows in the next two days and I want the music to sound right...crap.

Wait.

I thought about it for a while and then did a simple test at home using my own gear...aha I thought, I can fix our problem in ten minutes...probably need to visit Radio Shack first.
Other than the Shack trip, my plan was pretty damn easy: a stereo-to-mono conversion is a simple matter and we were relying on a hugely expensive and complicated electronic device to do it when a four-dollar gee-gaw could serve the same function, only better...duh.

So this morning when I got to the station I brought a couple of widgets with me so that I could test my theory, Radio Shack being closed at 7am and all...I was right. My idea worked. I found a few more widgets at the station and corrected about half of the equipment before I ran out of parts.
I did this during my show. Between songs. I had a LOT of coffee.

Before long, the coffee wanted to leave my body... I put on a lengthy song and skipped to the loo...fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
Something in here smells really, really baaaaad.
When I lifted the toilet lid, I saw that the bowl was full of shit. Judging from the toxic, choking fumes, I think it had started to ferment. Oh man...yuk.

As soon as the next DJ arrived, I found a plunger under the sink , gritted my teeth and cleared the mess out of the bowl . No fun.
A few minutes later, I saw a note left by yesterday's DJ- from 3PM! He noted that someone had left "poop" in the toilet and that he would try to fix it if he could find a plunger. Apparently he couldn't find it since that shit was still there. According to the note, the fecal cauldron had been stewing since at least yesterday afternoon...ugh. ugh. ugh.

The plunger was in plain sight under the sink but some devious motherfucker had built a cabinet around the plunger, after which they installed doors on the cabinet and shut them, making the plunger impossible to access.
Unless, that is, you understand cabinets and how to open them. As I said, I know how to operate gear, including hinges, doors and plungers...after I was done with opening the door and clearing the drain, I got to thinking about how many adults must have seen that mess of shit and walked away, thinking " someone else will do this"- I mean, the station is a busy place and that stuff had been there since yesterday- somebody had to pee at some point...did they not see the corn on the re-cob?

Anyway... after that, I drove to Radio Shack and bought parts. During my first trip, I was so agitated that I purchased the wrong items and had to return to the Shack and swap them out...this took longer than the ten minutes I had anticipated, but in the end it all worked just like I thought it would. No more missing guitars, no more dropped high notes...much better now!

I was composing an mail when my friend Liz dropped by the office to do pick something up...I'm not sure she understood much of what I said, but she could tell that I was pretty excited that my improvised repair worked out, so she bought me a cup of coffee, nodded a few times and smiled, which was nice. She also offered me a muffin, but my unexpected morning toilette had put me off of my appetite.

Tomorrow night I'll be guest-hosting my friend Will's show, which is a bit twangy and always good fun. It'll be a switch from what I usually play- and a switch from what Will plays as well.
I've got a few choice musical morsels to share and the listener will hear BOTH guitarists, boy howdy!
7PM - 9PM Eastern, if you wanna interlisten.

Now for some rest. Ah.

Breaking News

I was chatting with a friend of mine just now...she knows that I have a fondness for making stuff up so I'm not sure if she believed me when I told her that a tornado had just hit Atlanta- it struck CNN and the Georgia Dome, among other places- anyway, today is gonna be a busy day for You Tubers and conspiracy nuts, so I'd better get in early and be the first with the real story.

Scoop!


Evangelicals and insurance carriers are likely to label this bizarre event as an "act of God", but I think it's more reasonable to look at it as evidence of superhero activity.
I mean, ask yourself- "what would it be like if the Flash fought the Weather Wizard in real-life?"

The aftermath would look like this:


Since the press coverage only mentions a dozen or so injuries and no fatalities ( I hope), we can safely assume that the Flash won this particular conflict and thwarted the Weather Wizard; after which the Flash raced to and fro at 'super-speed' ,catching falling debris before it could crush hapless pedestrians...from what I didn't see, the Invisible Woman may have been present at the Georgia Dome, using a 'force-field' to keep the rafters from falling, but that's mere speculation at this point. It would be imprudent to start any rumors before all the reports are in.

Details to be posted as they arrive.

Scam du Jour

I saw a Chris Hansen TV show recently that dealt with the subject of Identity Theft. What they found was alarming- in one case, the Hansen team , (with a credit company's help) sold a handful of bogus 'stolen' credit card numbers to hackers in a secret chat room.
The activity on the 'bait' credit cards was being tracked in real-time; less than two minutes after their on-line 'sale', the cards had been maxed out with purchases from over a dozen foreign countries.

Under two minutes.

There were also a few stories that followed this sad outline:


A lonely person in the USA meets 'their perfect match' on-line and an electronic romance develops. The 'match' , who invariably lives in a foreign country, soon starts asking the lovestruck victim to accept packages for them and, in some instances, to forward those packages to a foreign PO...the packages, of course, contain goods purchased with stolen credit card numbers...eventually someone gets arrested and/or bankrupted. That person is usually the victim, not the perpetrator.

How do the crooks get your data? There are quite a few methods.
Some you can do very little to prevent-if a store that you used your VISA at gets hacked, there is not much you can do since it's unlikely that you'll even know it happened- but there is one thing that you can do.

Your best defense is this: Don't be a total idiot.

I didn't think that anyone could be dumb or desperate enough to fall for totally obvious scams such as the one presented below, but after watching the Hansen show, I realized that this country is lousy with stupid, lonely, emotionally desperate people who will believe almost anything, including thinking that a gorgeous 20-year old Brazilian co-ed with a 38D bustline can fall in love with a homely, uneducated middle-aged American man of the variety that wears sweat pants and baseball caps in public.
Please.



Today's featured scam claims to be from the Department of the Treasury with the subject line: "US Internal Revenue Service".
The mailer's address is: "director@USA.gov"...it might as well read: "thatman@behindthecurtain.oz"

The letter contains good news. I'm gonna get Free Money! Check this out:

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined
that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $189.60.
Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it.
It will be stored in our secure database for maximum of 3 days
while we process the results of this nationwide survey.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons.
For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access your tax refund online, please click on the link below

Give me a break. This year's tax deadline hasn't even passed yet, so what 'annual calculations' are they referring to?
An official IRS letter would arrive via the postal system, it would contain the specific tax YEAR at the very least and it probably wouldn't rely on incomplete sentences to convey important information ("For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.")...additionally, the IRS doesn't calculate your refund for you unless it's part of an audit- if you are being audited, you will know. I have been through that and it sucks...anyway, I didn't click the link that was included in the email, but I am positive that it leads to a form that will ask you to supply information (SSN, Employer ID#,income,bank routing info, etc) that the real IRS would already have...in other words, if the IRS already knows that it owes you $189.60, why are you getting an email? You should have a check.

It goes on to ask the victim to allow: " 6-9 days while we process the results of this nationwide survey."

Survey? What "survey"? This email is a notification, not a survey.

Furthermore, if it takes 6-9 days to process your 'survey', why do they tell you that the data will be held in their "secure database for a maximum of 3 days." ?
What if it takes 7 days to 'process'? The data, according to the sender, would be deleted and it would therefore be impossible to 'process'.

The true reason for the 'delay' period is simple. It gives the crooks a few days to empty out all of your accounts before you unwittingly report this scam to the real IRS via a "where is my refund?" request.

Beyond the mathematical and logical flaws there is an additional mistake made on the part of the sender: This scam appeals to people's inherent trust of the Federal Government in general and of the IRS specifically.

That's a loser's bet but it's paying off for somebody or they wouldn't keep rolling the dice.

I have discovered two ways to foil ID thieves:

1) By maintaining a credit score under 400 and a debt load in excess of $10,000. Your ID ain't worth stealing if your credit score is 380 and you owe sixty grand in medical bills...if someone wants to get credit in your name, they will first have to pay off your accumulated debts.

2) By not having money or property.

Both of my solutions come with their own set of problems, but if you think option #2 is a good choice for you, let me know. I'll send you a link to my PayPal account and you can shed yourself of your monetary burden-for your own protection, of course.
I'll give all the money back as soon as the internet stops being so dangerous.

Outside The Box

This is the telephone box [correction: it's the cable box] behind my apartment building. It looks as if someone opened the box door and fired a shotgun through it from behind at point-blank range. This would have left a mark -to say the least- on the facing building as well as the vehicles in the shot's path, mine included. Luckily, I found nothing of the sort.
I have no idea what happened here but my phone still works.
Perhaps it's more wire-tapped than it was before?

----------------------

Tonight I made well over a hundred dollars for a single evening's work and I didn't have to blow Eliot Spitzer to get it.
I was the 'Team Lead' for a crew of 15 temps assigned to work at a home foreclosure auction at the Convention Center. The event went very smoothly. Compared to my recent stint as a stagehand, it was a cakewalk; I had a good crew- some of whom I had worked with on other assignments- that helped make my job easy.
Our client informed me that she was very, very pleased with my team and that she would send a note to that effect to my boss. Yeah!
I've already impressed my new boss by repairing a smoking, broken-down vehicle in her parking lot using nothing but a borrowed screw driver - and now I have completed my first 'lead' assignment in a timely and competent manner. I hope my 'roll' continues!

Now for a series of Public Service Announcements:

---------------

Management tip: When you address your staff, do so with clarity and respect and they will do better work for you. This simple approach applies to all but the most incorrigible of worker, yet it is often overlooked by management. Tsk. Try it. C'mon.

--------------

I admit that I have tried the drug mentioned in this article . It was during my last visit to Chicago in 2006. I wasn't going to blog much about it because I do not wish to be in any way responsible for what might happen to an unwary user, nor do I generally wish to encourage drug use, although I do favor de-criminalization of certain things ( whole 'nother post, there).

Regarding salvia divornorum, in my opinion it would be better if most people just didn't know that it exists, but the fact is, people are gonna use drugs, so a little education can't hurt and now that salvia has broken into the mainstream media, I feel obligated to say a few words by way of warning.

Salvia Divinorum is making headlines as the "New Marijuana". It isn't.

Pot smokers pay heed: SALVIA IS NOTHING AT ALL LIKE WEED. DO NOT SMOKE IT CASUALLY. Salvia is the most potent hallucinogenic drug that I have ever taken and I have tried more than my share. No amount of 'chronic' can prepare you for the salvia experience. Salvia is for serious psychonauts only. I tried it alone, but I understand that it is generally considered a bad idea to do so. A sober 'sitter' is recommended. Better yet, don't try it at all.


In my case, my first pair of tiny tokes gave me little more than a warm, happy fuzzbuzz, so I got bored and did a full-size bonghit of the stuff- a powerful 8x extract- and held it in as long as I could...within seconds, the wall of my brother's apartment became an invisible tidal wave and I was swept into a horizontal, 'flying' position and found myself gazing down from above on a flotilla of odd-looking wooden sailing ships, open to the elements, I could see that there were men rowing, some were naked, most in rags...each ship also carried carried soldiers that looked like a hodge-podge of Dungeon and Dragons rejects, not at all like the stereotype Roman Legion, some were shouting but I don't know what was said... fifteen minutes later I was back in the 'real world' with nothing but a mild, mellow buzz to show for my bizarre journey. I had remained sitting upright in a chair the entire time...whew! It was an experience unlike anything I've ever had and I quite enjoyed it.

That being said, I will probably never do it again. The dosages aren't easy to control and I have a feeling that overdoing it would be very, very dangerous. If you are a stoner or have kids who might be dabbling, please be aware of the incredible potency of this stuff. It is no joke.

This article presents a somewhat different view than mine, but I do agree that it shouldn't be made illegal...that would only encourage rebellious kids to seek it out and create yet another black market complete with a corresponding spike in the socially counter-productive incarceration of drug offenders. (A whole 'nother post for that)
-----------------------

Two questions:

1) Are you registered to vote? If not, tsk...don't complain about BushCo if you were too apathetic to vote against it.

2) Do you have a library card? If not, get one ASAP. You will do yourself and your community a favor when you obtain a card and use it. If library membership and usage increases , it will be easier for libraries to make a case for continued and/or increased funding...a significant number of lower-income people (like myself) depend on our libraries for our reading and other needs, so please do us a good turn and check out a book. Help yourself out by reading it! Mind the due date, please.

---------------------
That is all.

A Lot of Stuff

It was a busy weekend. The memorial and reception for my cousin were held at the nursing home where my great-aunt resides. It was a comforting service.
The lady in the picture above used to live across the street from us when I was in the 3rd grade, now she lives in the same home as my great-aunt...small world, eh?

I had to report to the temporary agency today to pick up the paperwork for a one-day job tomorrow- as I pulled into their parking lot, a cloud of white smoke billowed out from underneath the hood of my car. That's generally a sign of trouble.

I was relieved when I opened my hood and saw green coolant sprayed all over the engine compartment. That meant that it was most likely a broken hose, an easy fix even for me. On closer inspection I found two dangling, leaking hose ends, one of which had a 'do-hickey' attached to it that was supposed to join the two hoses together...one of the connector stems had broken...fuck...at least I'm lucky that it happened in a parking lot and not the highway.

I reported to the office and got my papers- I'm to be the 'Team Lead' at a foreclosure auction tomorrow night, probably selling the homes that I was forced to approve loans for during my stint at Bank of Generica-the pay is $20 an hour, which is better than most temp assignments and nearly 250% as much as I made as a stagehand...anyway, the office manager was very nice to me, she loaned me a screwdriver so I could remove my broken wotsit and even gave me a ride to the parts shop! Very kind, she was. I will do good work for her.

We arrived at the shop and I ran inside and plopped the broken doo-dad on the counter, told the parts guy that it came out of a 1990 Volvo 780 and that I needed a new one, whatever it was. He told me it was called a 'heater valve' and a new one would cost fifteen bucks.
Deal!
My boss drove us back to the office and I plugged the new piece into my system, poured a gallon of coolant into it and waited.
No leaks.
Turned the engine on.
No smoke.
Rockin'!



--------------------------------------------------
Sunday I finally managed to get back on the air. It was my first broadcast from our new studio- the Gospel Dude overslept again, so I got to start my show a little early, fine by me... man, I love our new broadcast booth!
Here's a pic of our crackerjack Jazz DJs Mike and Giz enjoying the new digs:



------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The New Breakfast Snob, Sunday March 9th, 2008


Tangerine Dream- On Crane's Passage
When I arrived at our dark, empty station I found a robot at the helm. Perhaps some melodic electronica will ease us back towards the human element.

Gong- Hymnalayas
I have extra time this morning...playin' long songs! Gospel Dude walks in, tells me that his cell phone didn't adjust it's clock and he overslept. Tsk. Snooze and lose.
I think I'll play a ten-minute song now...

Yes- Starship Trooper
The station had a huge pile of CDs that were being given away to make room for new ones...I grabbed this CD from that pile since no one else wanted it.
I think that I might be the only prog-rock enthusiast at the station. *sigh*

Savoy Brown- Take It Easy
Good advice from Kim Simmonds and Co. If something breaks, find the problem and fix it. Don't worry and don't freak out...it took me 41 years to figure this out.

Moody Blues- Eyes of a Child/Floating
As I progress in my sobriety I am continually amazed at how often I see old things in new ways. This old music speaks to that.

King Crimson- Epitaph
"If we make it we can all sit back and laugh"
It's not all fun and games.
A nod to sorrow.

Gong- You Can't Kill Me
Defiance!

Genesis- I Know What I Like
Another prog-rock CD that no one else wanted. Score!

Ray Manzarek- The Gambler
Former Doors organist's first solo album...his singing kinda sucks, but this 1974 recording is fucking great anyway. I might be the only DJ anywhere who keeps it in his rotation.

Faces- Ooo La La
'Nuff said.

Cardiacs- Mare's Nest
This band has everything I like , including a reverence for my own initials, ABC. I once saw a cut and paste of one of my playlists posted on a Cardiacs forum that is named after this rather 'in-your-face' song. It was a moment of validation for me.

Jethro Tull- Queen and Country
Still one of my all-time fave bands...Tull's War Child LP is timeless, which is kinda sad, since it's such an angry album.

Joe Strummer & Mescaleros- Get Down Moses
No moment of silence for Joe today- instead lets have five minutes of rawk!

Pretty Things- Defecting Grey
This 1967 single was deemed to be "too weird" for commercial success...it contains what may be the first-ever recorded example of what is now called "Heavy Metal".
Overdriven tubes and tape saturation, oh baby!

10,000 Maniacs- Grey Victory
Natalie once crashed at a house that I shared with a bunch of weirdos...she didn't crash with me though.
*sigh*
She did leave a grey ring around the bathtub, however.
(When you are on tour, you get dirty-no disrespect meant.)

The Kinks- Here Come The People In Grey
"...to take me away."
Muswell Hillbillies is one of the best albums of all-time. Just sayin'.

Claanad- Why Worry?
"This is not the way"

Captain Beefheart- Happy Love Song
She said, baby, how long is your song?
I said, baby, as long as you want it to be...

Alan Parsons Project- Cask Of Amontillado
Beware of people named Allan.
DJ Allan playing music by Producer Alan based on the story by writer Edgar Allan...time to run fer the hills! If you weren't so entombed, that is.

Eleanor Shanley- Road to Glory
What do Vikings have to do with Ireland? Quite a bit, actually.

Damien Dempsey- Hold Me
Dempsey is fookin' brilliant! I'm on a one-man crusade to promote him in America. My request to his label for CDs is still unanswered. *sigh*

Damien Rice & Christy Moore- Lonely Soldier
A sad song of war. Moving stuff, really.

Loreena McKinnett-Dark Night Of The Soul
There will be bad times and those times shall pass.

Damien Dempsey and Sharon Shannon- Norwegian Wood
I wish I could explain this...maybe one day. *sigh*

Anuna- Sleepsong
Fifteen hours later, a nap.



Goodnight!

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There

I wish I had a comfortable and well-equipped place where I could set up a group of musicians and record them. It would also be pretty cool if I had a way of getting that recording onto the public airwaves.

Hmmm...well, I have a radio show already and I just finished re-wiring the music studio at the radio station, so that much is taken care of- I even have a pair of enthusiastic volunteer trainees, so it's now become a classroom as well as a studio, which is good because I'd like for other DJs to have live music skills too.

So, cool. I gots me some students to put the learnin' on.
I can get them to do all the stuff that I don't want to do (which is everything) and I get to take all the credit.
Awesome!
(Actually, I really like one of my vols. The other one is this guy.)

Next step: find a band.

Over the last few years, I've become increasingly enchanted by Celtic and Irish music in all it's forms, but I know shamefully little about it- it would be great if I could find a group of musicians who not only played such music, but were also well-versed in it's lore and traditions- enter my real-life friend Schlep!

Schlep put me in contact with a band called Poisoned Dwarf, a group which fit my needs exactly. If you like this sort of thing, check out their website (that means you, Sling), you will find that they are quite good and also have a great attitude towards the music they perform. I think it will be a great session. (Props to Schlep for the tip!)

Beyond my personal interest in the music, there is also a practical reason for me wanting to host an Irish folk group: the variety of instruments!
They have strings ( bowed and plucked), woodwinds, percussion, pipes and voices- this gives me a chance to demonstrate different microphones and proper mic techniques to my assistants.
I love teaching mic technique. I really do.

What a great deal: The band gets a free studio recording with guaranteed radio play and promotion, I get exactly the kind of group I need in order to teach my 'class' and I get to produce a kick-ass radio programme for my own show. As a bonus, I get to learn about music at the same time that I'm imparting my voluminous sonic wisdom to my volunteers. Tradition and technology, the cycle of preserving and sharing knowledge... man, it's pretty fuckin' Zen if you ask me. Even the terms used while recording reflect this: signal flow; balance; unity gain;harmonics;equalization...ahhh, I love it!

And ya know what?
Nobody was gonna fix that studio for me.
A band wasn't just going to magically appear.
My friends aren't gonna learn about sound by just looking at quiescent audio gear.
I have to do these things myself and I'm glad I'm doing them because it beats the hell out of sitting around and feeling sorry for myself.

Today it has been 30 months since my last alcoholic drink. In that time I've lost my grandmother, my cousin and three jobs; I wrecked my car, went on bad dates and have suffered almost every form of rejection that a man can suffer and I still haven't had a drink! That may not sound like much to you, but it means everything to me.

So, if you are imbibing an adult beverage at the moment, have an extra one for me. My drinking days are done, but I'm not done toasting: here's to making stuff happen!

*clink*