Prairie Fire Organizing Committee

Hemingway, Plath, Brautigan, David Foster Wallace, Lou Reed

2012-01-05T06:41:00.000-08:00

I spent a week in an inpatient facility, but the connection I want to draw is electroconvulsive therapy. I'm some twenty treatments in, I started last September, 3 times a week at first, and have now spread the treatments out to once per month. I dread everything about it, from getting up ridiculously early to having to expose my feet for electrodes. The worst though, without a doubt is the loss of memory. I can't find places I've visited dozens of times, conversations both recent and in the past are lost to me, but perhaps most troubling is how little I remember of books I've read and loved. An excuse to read them again no doubt, but still unsettling.

With my signature your marriage is terminated.

2010-07-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

Outside of people looking for citizenship, tax benefits, or perhaps health insurance, I don’t think anyone is more excited by the prospect of marriage from the perspective of the involvement of the state than the vows.

I have to admit, we talked about insurance early on, but not as a reason for marriage, but as a reason that it made sense to get married so soon. We were convinced we knew each other more intimately than people married entire lifetimes, we’d been through the worst together, and seen one another stretched, and still believed we’d never spend a night apart.

Marriage was attractive for the vows, the commitment that problems would be fleeting, not the relationship. In our end, the vows would be meaningless, unspoken of until the courtroom. Only the legality was of consideration, discussed.

2010-06-14T17:49:00.000-07:00

I know it isn’t healthy to pin my happiness to another person, but sometimes in the afternoon doldrums I just want to know there is someone who won’t have plans without me, and won’t say no to going out.

Involuntary Goodfellas

2010-05-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

The intake interview on 3C mostly consisted of questions I had already answered four or five times earlier that day, first at my psychologist’s asking, and then with a series of emergency room medical doctors, psychiatry residents, and finally the EMTs who were transporting me to the inpatient facility. Bob, the night R.N. who I had been assigned to at the Behavioral Health Services Center checked boxes and slid papers across the table for initials and signatures. There were no surprises for me, although my suicide plan somehow seemed new to him. Like the father Jeff Mangum sang about, I had thought about all the ways to die, and up until now, they had all been more than I had dared to try. The night before I had settled on starving my brain of oxygen by breathing in pure helium commonly sold at party stores where it would otherwise end up in balloons that at their darkest would read ‘Over the Hill’. Bob made sure to stress that the program was short term, just for stabilization.

I was wearing only a pair of boxer shorts that may have been contraband for the elastic waist (shoe strings were a banned item on the floor, even for visitors), and the gown I was given ten hours earlier in the ER that my psychologist had walked me down to. My personal affects were in a plastic bag with the international symbol for biohazard printed on it, and I pictured the scene in every prison movie where the just released ex-con signs off on receiving the items that had followed them into incarceration as I acknowledged with ink an LG cellphone and the more important contents of my wallet (Bob had no interest in my being 6 smoothies away from a free one, or presumably being a regular shopper at Borders Books).

The unit’s community room doubled as the dining room. By the amount of crumbs on the tables, and the amount of patients I had to assume were also suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (someone must have had a cleaning compulsion), I must have just missed snack time, when the sound of the metal window being rolled up draws the patients into a mob that slowly dissipates as they each receive their two food items and one beverage. For the Cleveland Clinic, it seemed odd that the offerings included potato chips, cookies and pop, but maybe the residents of my floor weren’t to be trifled with over high fructose corn syrup or trans fat. But if an apple or a banana could set someone off, I had to question the logic of allowing us to watch Goodfellas on a television that was behind a plexiglass window that was smeared with body oil in a pattern that suggested someone at been shoved against it before sliding down to the floor. It had been a few years since I watched Goodfellas, but all of a sudden it was slightly comforting that pens were also off limits on the floor, I hadn’t forgotten the scene were Joe Pesci put one through someone’s neck over a trivial insult.

More picture(s) of building(s) (but not food).

2010-03-28T10:59:00.000-07:00

Cleveland may not have a reputation as a first class city, but the controversial Marcel Breuer (Bauhaus) building always seemed more fitting for a Soviet era concrete wasteland than the post-industrial demise of what once was the United State's 6th largest city, and home to Rockefeller and Carnegie.

Maybe beauty isn't only in the eye of the beholder, but the angle of the beholding.

The album is on iTunes

2010-02-15T17:40:00.000-08:00

Years in the making, PFOC on iTunes.

My progress on the next album has been slow, but for a few more days I'm not going to worry about that.

Who knew the Grammys were so cheap?

2010-02-01T16:26:00.000-08:00

PFOC bassist Tim Luntzel won a Grammy for his work with Loudon Wainwright, but he didn't get a statuette, in fact, if he wants a certificate he has to send them $25.

And her screaming decay...

2010-01-23T10:33:00.000-08:00

In an effort to get me outside of my head more, my psychologist gave me the assignment of trying to sense more. I've always meant to take more pictures than I do, and being that I'm never in much of a hurry, I've started carrying my camera much more often.

Think twice before going to the ATM in your VW Jetta

2009-12-30T09:58:00.000-08:00

As a kid, my family owned most of the cars that the automotive term 'lemon' was coined for. AMC Pacer? Check. Ford Pinto? We drove one from California to Ohio and for years after. But a problem I've experienced three times with two Jettas was completely new to me, and everyone I've ever spoken about it with outside of other VW owners.

From what I have learned about the inner-workings of Volkswagen door windows, they are held up by 5 clips, that at least as recently as 2001 (the year of my Jetta wagon) were made out of plastic. I don't know much about plastic, though I did have a junior year chemistry lab where we were assigned the task of trying to identify the variety of plastic by the way it burned, which was both interesting and I suspect carcinogenic, but I do know that plastic often doesn't stand up to significant changes in temperature well. Twice on days that were well below freezing, and once on a suffocatingly hot day, these clips have failed and a window has fallen into the door.

The first two times this happened, it was covered by warranty, or extended warranty. Yesterday, when it happened a third time as I pulled away from the ATM in Lakewood, Ohio, I thought I knew just what to do. I dropped by home to let the dog out, pick up the lap top, and place calls to find out if any of the Cleveland area VW dealers could get to the repair that afternoon.

A windowless twenty mile drive across town in twenty degree weather later I found out that Volkswagen decided their willingness to stand behind their product had run out for my 2001. The bill came to $228, the replacement clips cost a total of $7.50 for five.

If by chance you're a designer cars, or you count beans at a car company and are always looking for ways to save a few pennies, listen to me, the consumer. I would much rather have paid an additional $30 at purchase than to have driven across Cleveland windowless in winter, sat in dealership waiting rooms for hours, paid hundreds of dollars, and now live with the fear that another window may go at any time.

If you're thinking about buying a Volkswagen, I'd think twice. Besides the window, in the past year I've had the windshield wipers go out while driving on a highway during a torrential nighttime storm. In VW's infinite wisdom, they decided that access to the wiper motors should be through the steering column (a move that allows them to install massive amounts of cosmetic plastic around the engine that inevitably adds time to any repair), that repair also involved a relatively inexpensive part, and more than $300 in labor.

It's not all labor with Volkwagen repairs either. A catalytic converter ran $700 for the part, many times the cost for most vehicles.

Customer Service at VW seems to exist only to read you a script and tell you that they'll send a report on to someone they won't let you talk to. I've submitted forms to the Attorney General's Office and the Better Business Bureau, and I hope to one day be notified that I'm eligible for a share of a class action lawsuit, but I suspect the only power I have in this fight is to sling a little mud VW's way.

Dear Elected Officials:

2009-11-04T15:54:00.000-08:00

I believe the economy, foreign affairs, health care, the environment, education and on an on are all more significant issues than campaign finance reform, but it is becoming all too obvious that campaign finance, for candidates as well as ballot issues, is the flood gate standing in the way of the will of the people.

I urge you to draft a reform bill that is simple and clear, one that is accessible to the average citizen, and one that can be passed without months or years of debate and gridlock.

This is America

2009-09-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

This is America, and it is both our birthright to spend money we don't have on whatever we deem fit, and to make money off other people spending the money they don't have...it's our birthright to look at Bill Gates and see that the most remarkable thing about the man was that he dropped out of college, and look at ourselves and see that we too can drop out college, even if we're dropping out as a result of drinking too much and waking up every day wondering if the sun is coming up or going down.

A strange twist of fate.

2009-08-17T14:45:00.000-07:00

What seems like my first memory of Mike Skutt is him being called upon to do a dramatic reading of a call and response prayer from Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle in my high school Modern Novel class.

Sometime ago he filmed a magic DVD. Actually, I think he's filmed a few.

A few months ago I asked Mike about the person behind the videography and editing, hoping to maybe talk them into shooting a music video for me. When Mike said they owned a production company, I backed off, I didn't really have a budget, and I'm not comfortable asking a person to perform their profession for free, I was hoping that they were a film student.

A few weeks ago I came across an advertisement by someone looking to shoot a music video for free. Ryan owns a production company and teaches in the film department of a local college, and was looking for a project that he would enjoy, versus the usual work of filming weddings and corporate training videos.

A few days after meeting at an Arabica, Facebook suggested Ryan to me, and our common friends were Mike Skutt and his wife, and it turns out that he had done the video that I had asked about.

We had our shoot yesterday.

Danielle, Bob Willey, Bob's girlfriend Mika, and I had our first show, so to speak.

These are pictures, not stills.

All things go, all things go.

2009-06-05T12:15:00.000-07:00

Drove to Chicago.

We finished tracking guitars with Chris Bober at Chicago Sound Lab on Saturday. I have a song that I need to add a little bit of piano to, one to change the lyrics on, and maybe a few vocal overdubs to do, but first I have to sort though the original vocal takes and see if there is enough to work with (cut up) from takes that didn't make the cut as a whole.

Our friend Matt Schulz, one of my favorite drummers in the world (and my boy-crush), put us on the list (for the second time in three nights, thanks Matt!) for the sold out Holy Fuck show at the Empty Bottle. They really have me thinking about music in completely new ways, releasing tension at times with a heavy groove instead of just a consonant chord. The music I'm making right now might be too straightforward to incorporate it, but I'm taking on a new project soon, and I think there's a place for it. More to come on this soon, I hope.

Here's Sufjan on Morning Becomes Eclectic:

I was born during a Memorial Day parade.

2009-06-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

Danielle was born the next day.

The Cleveland Botanical Gardens were open without charge this past holiday weekend.

At times this spring I've become obsessed with popping dandelions. If I see one in our yard, I have to pop it, it's the rule. There were times that the jagged silhouette of dandelion leaves were burned on my retinas. Still, I like blowing on a puff of seeds, and even though I didn't capture that very well in this picture, I like it.

Sweep away your worries...

2009-04-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

I really hoped our friends Joe and Carolina could cast our first video for us. They're one of the best looking couples in Cleveland, and they met at the now defunct 80's night. All we needed was a single dancer.

Putting out some sort of casting call made me nervous, I didn't want to have to reject people on a couple photographs, or even worse, after some sort of dancing audition, not that I needed great dancing, the concept was based on a Mommartz film I found of a short of a mod-ish girl dancing by herself.

Joe and Carolina couldn't come up with anyone, but everything worked out.

Our friend Lauren (her band Chief Bromide just released a new album) did the videography. Stacy Candow shot still photography. Gina Mirto danced.

Oh it's such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you.

2009-04-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

We didn't drink sangria in the park, but we did have peanut butter milkshakes from Swensons afterward.

Most of our trips to the Cuyahoga Valley coincide with fall foliage, or snowfall. Until today, we've overlooked some of the more lasting beauty of the park for the fleeting splendors.

My poetry was lousy, you said.

2009-03-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

My parents kept the record player in the dining room of the house I grew up in. Most of the time the room was purely utilitarian, and all but a couple of the memories I have of it involve Christmas dinners. The record player, and listening to Donovan in particular, as well as once deciding I was recovered enough from the flu to play ping pong and discovering I wasn't, are about all I can come up with.

My love of Dylan came from my dad, The Beatles too, but by the time I was digging through his record collection, it had spent too much time in an attic in Ohio, and most of it was warped.

My mom on the other hand has at times questionable taste. A fair number of Christmas dinners were eaten with new age versions of carols in the background, but she has moments of clarity too. Tim Buckley, Leonard Cohen. We saw Joan Baez with her on Saturday.

Joan was great. Besides Dylan, she covered John Lennon, The Carter Family, Elvis Costello, and Donovan. I would have left happy having only heard Diamonds and Rust.

My favorite YouTube videos are usually taken from live television performances from Europe. I can't quite embrace home movies made at concerts. I searched and search, and before finding the right version to post, I also found that Judas Priest covered my favorite Joan song. I've never really listened to JP, and even knowing they took their name from a Dylan song, it surprised me. I wonder if the shred bands that covered JP's version and posted their clips knew where the song originally came from.

This is Rock & Roll

2009-01-25T10:18:00.001-08:00

There is no way you won't be disappointed if you stop watching before it's over.

Don't bother concealing your thievery

2009-01-15T16:38:00.001-08:00

This isn't the first thing I've stolen from Even Cleveland. Danielle recommends it for Clevelanders and nonClevelanders alike.

Love is a burning thing.

2009-01-11T14:00:00.000-08:00

Danielle's worst nightmare involves having her teeth smashed out. Sometimes I dream that I'm mysteriously missing a tooth, but I never know why.

Figuratively, my worst nightmare might involve a never-ending episode of Laurence Welk.

The Cincinnati Pops opened a new performance center in the first months of my first year of college, and in true Welk-fashion the grand finale was the Pops playing 76 Trombones , which they brought in part of my college marching band for (I didn't get a choice about being in the marching band).

Ray Charles played a few of his most recognizable songs too, but he didn't play this:

I wrote a simple song.

2009-01-09T04:15:00.000-08:00

I shouldn't kid myself, everything I write is simple. Billy Preston, on the other hand, is a damn liar.

We started recording maybe our simplest song yet last night. Danielle also tracked new vocals, and we continued tweaking mixes, most notably of the trumpet parts on Emptiness Swallows Heaven and Earth. Three new versions of songs are up in the player.

Those funny little plans that never work quite right...

2009-01-06T14:13:00.000-08:00

"When the Beatles were depressed-thinking the group is going nowhere, and this is a shitty deal, and we're in a shitty dressing room-I'd say, 'Where are we going, fellas?' And they'd go, 'To the top Johnny!' And I'd say, 'Where's that fellas?' and they'd say, 'To the toppermost of the poppermost!' and I'd say 'Right!' Then we'd all sort of cheer up."

A few days before Christmas marked a year of recording for us, but that's deceptive. For the most part, it's been a few hours here and there, and waiting for the mailman to bring new parts from elsewhere, or paychecks to cover expenses.

Everything was inspired by Richard Brautigan, and in no small part, Jimi Hendrix (really), and almost everything was guitar driven, most of it by the same strumming pattern that everyone uses for six/eight. Our first sketches of the songs didn't have any bass (although Chris played bass lines on a 7-string guitar), and only one song had drums.

I read a lot about the music industry. I'm not sure if Napster and Kazaa really killed it, but even if they did, I still think Lars Ulrich prick. That said, confronted with the numbers for pressing and printing, as well as distribution, I'm pretty sure that there's no way I could make an EP work.

In June we started recording 6 more songs, so we could release an album. I'm not sure we have an album. The difference between songs written when there were no plans for them, and songs written when you know you'll be supported by the kind of players we've been lucky enough to surround ourselves with is a lot of distance to close.

I'm focused on the full length, with the latest recordings, but two nights from now we'll be in the studio starting the recording of songs that will flesh out the album.

I suppose delays are inevitable. I hope it all proves worth the wait.

This is the New Year (Bandido Americano)

2009-01-01T06:56:00.001-08:00

New Year's Eve has never meant much to me, I only really have a clear memory of one of mine. My parents took me and my brother to a hibachi restaurant where I was convinced every woman at our table was a prostitute, before dumping us off on a cousin who took us to screening of short animation films, most of which may have been pornographic. Back at the hotel, Oliver and I fought a lot, probably over what to watch on television, so I went downstairs and sat outside a ballroom where people were doing the electric slide, and women who should have known better justified offering me drinks because it was New Year's. I couldn't have been more than twelve.

I remember my friend Bob's New Year's (the year 2000?) better than my own. He got up early and went to airport to watch the sunrise.

Bob's a lot cooler than I am. He did a remix of a Sound of Arrows song that ended up getting used on Gossip Girl, and he didn't even know what the show was (although he has been living in Japan the entire time it's been on - listen to his own music at Bobcat).

I resoluted last night to watch the sunrise over Cleveland from Lakewood park this morning. Some of the pictures turned out a little like a Mark Rothko painting, and probably better than seeing the sunrise in person.

One other person came down to the park. I'm not sure if they didn't want to jump the chainlink fence (which I learned today isn't that easy to do with snow boots on), or if I scared them, I kind of looked like a crazy Vietnam veteran with my militaryesque coat and scarf across my face. I know I looked nothing like him, but for a second I thought about Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy in Bolivia.

I saw the sun rise over the ocean, from a plane once. With the curve of the earth, the night sky was still starry and dark towards the back of the plane, with a perfect sun rise in front. It wasn't that far off of pictures from space, I'm not sure any other sun rise will ever compare.

Salvation is Created

2008-12-27T09:36:00.000-08:00

When I was in high school, my family hosted a few kids from the St. Olaf's College Choir after a concert. This footage is from much earlier, but one of my favorite pieces, and it can certainly transcend time and haircuts.

Angel Trumpets and Devil Trombones

2008-12-13T20:23:00.001-08:00

My dad had a trombone in the attic when I was growing up. I didn't really want to play it, but my parents had pretty good reason to think that I wasn't the kind of kid that would stick with an instrument.

The trombone was good to me. I'm not sure I would have made it into a music program for college with an instrument that more people play, and I certainly wouldn't have had the opportunities that I had.

Mozart said the trombone is the voice of god. He could have been right, but for this project I like the trumpet better.

Alex Schecter recorded a few tracks for us today, on a song (Emptiness Swallows Heaven and Earth) that I posted for the first time in any form today. I left the studio before we had a chance to reference the mix on regular speakers, and there are going to be some adjustments that need to be made, but it's going to be great.

And I’ve become what I thought was dumb (dumb).

2008-12-04T17:08:00.001-08:00

If I were truly paranoid, I'd probably think Doug Martsch was thinking about me a lot. There's something in the way he captures his contempt for other people's shortcomings that matches up with my fears of what people think of me.

Best not talk too loud, you're not as smart as you require of them

Most of my fears are entirely irrational. In middle school I always raised my hand to read aloud, hoping to prove I wasn't illiterate to any of my classmates that might think that.

Summers home from college I thought I could feel myself losing my faculties, I thought I could sense myself talking slower, almost as if I was out of practice. It's an unsettling sensation I had again a few days ago.

Here's a clip of Elliott Smith covering Built to Spill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw0WcjNjzy8

November 4th, 2008

2008-11-06T13:20:00.001-08:00

The first pass of Election Day canvassing started at half past nine. The goal was to knock on every door in Lakewood belonging to a person whom the campaign had identified as either a 'soft supporter' or 'sporadic voter' three times before the polls closed at seven-thirty.

Campaign headquarters can be strange places, at least on the Democratic side. They seem to pop up in storefronts that can be had on the cheap, places where the plaster is falling off the walls onto floors that are unfinished. Everything is temporary, they're furnished with card tables and folding chairs, and in my experience they never have cable television.

The rabbit ears on the portable TV couldn't pick up PBS, and the networks were still airing soap operas as I tallied the numbers from my second pass in the afternoon. My only sense of how the day was unfolding was first person. Very few people answered their doorbells. I had walked past only one polling location, and it was quiet aside from a car full of college kids who were ambushing a stranger in the parking lot to take a picture of them getting ready to cast what I'd assume were their first presidential votes, instead of 'cheese' they proclaimed 'Obama'. If I had to guess, I'd say the photographer was about to cancel one of their votes. Part of me had hoped to see an unprecedented turnout, and part of me feared long lines could cause some would-be voters to have to abandon their efforts.

Earlier in the campaign season I developed a few voyeuristic habits while canvassing, nothing criminal or immoral. It started with looking for political bumper stickers on the cars in the driveway, and progressed to looking for a network logo if the news was on the television. After talking with hundreds of voters, knocking on thousands of doors, and walking down half the streets in Lakewood, I developed a pretty keen eye for picking up political leanings based upon such things as the type of Halloween decorations on display or the movies on a bookshelf. On November 4th, nothing gave me much sense of how things might be going.

As uncomfortable as we Americans can be with strangers, averting our eyes to the ground as we pass one another rather than giving a smile, there is a refreshing solidarity among the supporters of the candidates or causes during campaign season. Many nights, walking home from the campaign headquarters someone I'd pass on the street or waiting at a bus stop would say Obama's name out loud after seeing my shirt, or a button on my jacket. Usually I wouldn't even break stride, I'd just say his name back, or clench a fist and raise my forearm a little.

On my third canvass when I saw an elderly black man walking to his car, wearing the same 'canvasser' button that I had on, I called out to him. I hungered for news, his experience at the polls, or maybe even something journalistic, though I knew that the networks would be holding their exit poll results for a few more hours. What he told me had something entirely different to do with the day. As I crossed the street to greet him, a police badge clipped to his belt caught my eye, and after exchanging pleasantries, he pulled back his jacket to show me a faded blue shirt with the insignia of the Capitol Police embroidered on the left breast. Years earlier he had guarded not only the chambers of Congress, but the members, at times having been assigned to Strom Thurmond as a bodyguard.

I am not in a position, by skin color or age, to truly comprehend the realities of my parents’ and grandparents’ generations, from the Civil Rights movement to Vietnam, the height of the Cold War to the assassination of JFK. I know that November 4th, 2008 was only evidence of progress, and far from a culminating event, but when Ohio was called, and the map turned from white to blue, along with a shiver up my spine, I felt a renewed sense of pride in my country and countrymen.

Shake It Off (not a Mates of State post)

2008-11-03T09:49:00.001-08:00

Ten days ago or so when I went to see President Clinton speak, I got there an hour early and ended up in the front row. Actually, I ended up behind the barricade for a few minutes when the organizers needed a little help setting up canopies in what was a strong wind coming off Lake Erie (another kid and I were selected by the Secret Service).

I knew it would be different for Barack and Bruce Springsteen yesterday (John Kerry ended his campaign four years ago in Cleveland, with The Boss, and drew an estimated 50,000, and Kerry certainly didn't inspire like Obama does).

We took the train downtown, which is important to this story for a couple of reasons. The first is that we by chance met Joe from Saint Ohio on the platform. They're great, so open them in another tab and listen to them while you read the rest of this.

The second reason is that it gave me the title. Besides Barack's rally, there was a home Browns game. Had hoped to beat a few people to the line for the rally by taking the Waterfront line to the Rock Hall, which meant we went right past several parking lots of tailgating football fans. For a second it looked as though one particular fan was mooning us, but it turned out she was just urinating behind a bridge pylon, hidden from view from her friends, but aimed right at a packed train.

I really wish I had video taped the walk to the end of the line to get into the rally, which I read one estimate had at nearly a mile long (I personally would have guessed much longer).

In the end, we didn't even make it to the security gate, we ended up in an overflow area from which we could see the stage, as well as a jumbotron. I didn't get any pictures worth posting, it was dark by the time the things really got started, and Bruce and Barack were between us and the world's brightest light. Here's a couple that I found this morning:

The speech was more policy than I would have expected, 36 hours before the polls start closing. My favorite moment however was when Barack asked for a show of hands of those making less than a quarter of a million dollars a year, and told Bruce not to raise his hand.

Old Brown Shoe

2008-10-29T20:46:00.001-07:00

Ramona victimized my favorite pair of shoes a few months ago. She ripped out one of the tongues, and made it her baby. She had to have it under her chin when napping.

I kept wearing the shoes like my second skin, until Barack did them in last week with a cracked sole.

I knocked on 55 doors yesterday, and 82 tonight.

Starting with tonight's canvass I'm not resetting my pedometer until after my last Get Out The Vote effort on the 4th.

Visit BarackObama.com to find out how you can help.

Pinkertons!

2008-10-26T18:03:00.001-07:00

We packed up the dog and headed for Danielle's parents' house yesterday, we were over due for a visit, but we also wanted to make a final pitch to her mom for Barack.

I don't know if we were successful, we were up against a lot. Danielle's great-great-grandfather was once the mayor of the town she grew up in, and his legacy is calling in the Pinkertons to break a strike of steel workers. It's not just bloodlines, a sign with the ten commandments on it is displayed in the front yard, and abortion is a big issue.

On our side, we took Sicko as a discussion starter.

My mother-in-law works in a factory, her last annual raise was a nickel an hour, and her employee share of her health insurance went up significantly, leading to take-home pay that is not only less than last year when adjusted for inflation, or the cost of living, but less in terms of the actual dollar amount on the check - all this while the owner has recently bragged about record profits.

One of the extras on the Sicko dvd is about Norway, a reaction to the Sean Hannity's of the world crying about the horrors of socialized medicine and European socialism in general. Danielle's mom and I talked about education too, in particular, the free higher education of many European countries, she worried out loud where employers would find cheap labor if everyone had an opportunity to earn a college degree.

How did the workers of this country, those who see their paychecks go down, come to have concerns for their employer's ability to find cheap labor when they themselves are unable to take a hot shower, or cook on their stove for having fallen too far behind on their gas bills and having it shut off months ago.

A fluff piece.

2008-10-24T18:05:00.001-07:00

According to the latest filing with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night, the McCain campaign's highest paid employee for the first half of October was celebrity make-up artist Amy Strozzi ($22,800 for two weeks), who travels with Governor Palin.

By contrast, Randy Scheunemann, McCain's Chief Foreign Policy Adviser, made under $13,000 over the same time period.

In my opinion, these things aren't the things that should decide a person's vote, but I don't think that's what McCain wanted us to think a few months ago when he was running his 'Celebrity' ads.

This comes from the ladies at Bust magazine.

2008-10-23T11:52:00.002-07:00

Give some thought to voting early (you can find out where at VoteForChange.com). Voting early does a number of things, most importantly ensuring you will get a vote. I say this because I recently read that one of the largest counties in Ohio only ordered as many ballots as they did in 2004, despite the predictions of a record turnout.

Voting early will also help reduce lines for other people, and hopefully help discourage people from leaving the lines (I've talked to people on my canvasses that waited as long as 3 hours to vote in 2004).

"I felt like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest"

2008-10-23T11:52:00.001-07:00

A long time ago I posted a blog about childhood vision problems and Dennis Kucinich, which I linked by UFO stories. It got picked up by some UFO enthusiast webpage, and my blogspot blog went from a dozen or so views a day to several hundred for a day or two.

The subject line is a quote I read the other day from a pilot in the 1950's that got orders to fire on a UFO. I read it on cnn.com, I'm not UFO crazy.

Below is the complete interaction between Barack Obama and 'Joe the Plumber'. It's not an ass-kicking, but I couldn't come up with a better title, what it is is Barack clearly laying out his rationale for his taxation plan in terms that make a lot of sense.

Do you think Barack Obama is circumcised or uncircumcised?

2008-10-12T16:36:00.001-07:00

I didn't think of that question myself, David Sedaris did.

Some of the most compassionate, thoughtful, and loving people I know are republicans. I know the people in this video don't represent all republicans, nor do I believe in any way they could be convinced to vote for Barack Obama.

Regardless of political affiliation, I hope that disturbed you.

If you are a supported of Senator Obama, please consider adding Barack's myspace you haven't already, and putting him in your top friends. In past elections I've discounted the value of yard signs, and even canvassing, but I recently heard a report on NPR about how both are helping Obama/Biden in areas where race may be an issue, because people see it as their neighbors vouching for Obama.

Also, I recently set up a fundraising account for Obama/Biden. The money goes directly to the campaign, and not through us in any way. I set the goal at an incredibly reasonable total of $250.00, to encourage small donations.

John McCain’s words from his book, Worth the Fighting For

2008-09-28T08:37:00.000-07:00

"I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. I was sixty-two years old when I made the decision, and I thought it was my one shot at the prize."

I'm sure very few people find themselves in the position of running for president completely devoid of personal ambition, and ambition in itself is not an inherently bad thing.

In fairness to Senator McCain, he does go on to say that he believes he has the experience, both political and military, to do the job.

That said, I want a president driven by the desire to create a better world, not one who mostly wants to satisfy his ego.

I took the picture below last night, I first read the quote online on another blog, but wasn't convinced it was accurate until I saw it for myself.

$700,000,000,000.00, or getting richer, quicker?

2008-09-26T12:03:00.001-07:00

I like Woody Guthrie. I'd probably like riding around in box cars, and even in times of prosperity, cooking beans over a campfire appeals to me, but I'm not saying 'bring on the depression'.

That said, I can't get behind this bailout yet, and I'm not sure any amount of details will change that, because I'm not sure new rules could be implemented in a way that fundamentally changes the way business works.

As I understand it, we're in the situation not because of simple greed, but because of complex greed. The more I read, the more it seems that Wall Street operates on the same principles as the 'no money down real estate schemes' that run infomercials in the middle of the night.

The companies we're trying to save seem to have an atrocious history of trying to make money out of money where nothing else exists. They're not investing in people or business, they're not investing in anything that helps society.

We've built a financial industry where we can sell stocks that we don't own, that we can control massively more commodities than we can afford to purchase, that we can hedge our investment gambles with insurance policies on them.

I for one am beginning to believe we need to invest in something real, real jobs, real education, real energy solutions, real health care, real infrastructure, not just greasing the squeaky wheels of a financial system that seems to be most concerned with making the rich richer.

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The Fundamentals of our Economy are Strong

2008-09-16T18:37:00.001-07:00

If John McCain wants to spin this signature line from his speeches into some sort of comment on how innovative and productive the American worker is, rather than considering the fundamentals of the economy to be those measurable areas of it such as job creation, unemployment rates, inflation, let him.

But to John McCain, I ask this:

What does the American worker look like? Are you talking about the CEO getting millions of dollars in bonuses while their company posts record loses? Or are you talking about the everyday worker who makes a tiny fraction of a percent of what the CEO does?

John McCain, how many times have you voted against an increase in the minimum wage? (the answer is 19 times)

Are these, minimum wage workers, the Fundamental of our economy? These workers, who with their families make up the 47,000,000+ Americans without health insurance?

Pardon me if I don't accept your campaigns' rhetoric that since no one can be turned away from an Emergency room, we have Universal Health Care in this country.

Is it the fundamentally strong workers who are losing their homes in historic numbers (nearly 10,000 a week). And what about those who are in homes that have lost a quarter of their value under the same economic policies you subscribe to?

Perhaps the fundamentally strong workers are that top 1% who receives 36% of the Bush tax cuts that you want to make permanent.

As Dennis Kucinich said in Denver, Wake-Up America!

We're closing in on the deadline to register to vote (it's October 6th in Ohio).

Talk to a friend that's not registered, and make sure they do. Talk to a friend that doesn't care the least bit about politics and give the reasons why you think it's worth taking a few minutes to register and vote. This election is too important, and recent history shows us the difference of a few hundred votes is the difference between 8 years of Bush or a better America than what we have now.

Sarah Palin's Red Meat Express

2008-09-04T12:17:00.001-07:00

"Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except you have actual responsibilities."

Yeah, I guess it is, except most community organizers don't generate $22,000,000,00 in debt for their communities, and they don't hire lobbyists to generate $27,000,000.00 in earmarks.

Those things aren't the biggest knocks against her in my book (speaking of books, Time reported that she had a chat with her home town librarian about how to go about banning books, and when she didn't like the answers she got, she threatened to fire the woman). But I think it's a little funny that she's being presented to us by John McCain (who vows as president to veto any bill with earmarks in it) as a true reformer and little else.

With all the issues facing our country these days, just where does the need for reform in government sit with you? Before the economy? Iraq? health care? global warming? education?

An Obama button, on us.

2008-07-23T12:23:00.001-07:00

Not only are we telling you about it, but we've made a donation to help fund them. Get your free Obama button from MoveOn.org.

A bunch of Anniversary

2008-07-10T16:18:00.001-07:00

We celebrated our 4th anniversary a few days ago. So yes, we're older looking than in our picture. I have a beard, circles under my eyes, probably less hair, but I've thought I've been losing that since I was in elementary school, which oddly, Chris Martin of Coldplay has as well.

We cashed out a lot of retirement savings. It's kind of a strange situation. It has to do with the social security administration. That's an odd place. I caught an elderly social security security guard checking out a middle-aged woman's derrière, and then his eye, and he watched me like a hawk the entire time after that. There was a kid there too that smelled up the place, and then we shared an elevator with afterwards. He didn't have to blame it on anything, we're modest people, but he blamed it on a BK Croissandwich anyway.

The long and the short of it is that while all this money is passing through my hands, most of it just going towards our mortgage, Danielle gave me the anniversary present of a Gretsch Double Anniversary. It's a cool guitar. Hopefully you'll hear it soon, as we start a new round of recording a week from tomorrow.

Here's the very guitar, a shiny Cadillac Green 1964 Double Anniversary:

Poverty is sort of the new theme.

2008-07-03T21:15:00.000-07:00

I started a photo album about it on myspace, but it's going to take some time.

Cleveland has been named America's poorest major city of the year several times already this century.

I used to teach in the inner-city, I pretty literally went crazy from watching myself become a failure there. The district on a whole only graduates about 1/3rd of it's students.

I taught music. I remember picking up a student who wouldn't otherwise be able to make it to a performance, three kids, no bedrooms for any of them, no beds, no mattresses. They slept on blankets on the floor, maybe towels.

It's a political problem, but the solution doesn't begin with thinking everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps because it's the American way. Not every start is equal, or remotely similar in quality.

The American way shouldn't be to allow people to live in projects like this:

We need to do better.

Drums and Bass

2008-06-21T20:27:00.000-07:00

We finished tracking, and are a good ways into mixing things.

I woke up to some of Tim Luntzel's playing almost every day without realizing it for the longest time. He played on a lot of Bright Eye's I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, and I like to wake up to First Day of My Life.

I'm really particular about bass playing. I used to be a bass player, I'm not sure I like my own playing that well. I've come up with a few things that I still like, but I think I'm too obvious. I don't really care for busy bass playing for the sake of being busy. In my opinion there's kind of a fine balance between contributing something to a song, and sort of over doing it, especially when people who aren't talented enough to breakout of some conventions try to be flashy.

Danielle and I were in the car listening to the I'm Not There soundtrack when I heard the greatest electric bass playing of my life, on Mira Billotte's cover of As I Went Out One Morning. When we got where we were going I looked up the player in the liner notes, it was Tim. I tracked him down and got him to agree to record for us.

He recorded direct at a friend's house in NYC, and then we sent the signal through a vintage Ampeg set-up at Metrosync, mic'ed up with a Neumann U87 as well as another mic that I don't remember, but I don't think we used it in what we've mixed so far.

I hope Tim will play on everything I record for the rest of my life.

We also did drums on three songs two weeks ago. I had high hopes that an old friend would be able to play, but it didn't work out time wise. Paul Samuels helped us out, and it ended up being a great fit. Paul is primarily a jazz drummer, he teachers in Oberlin's jazz studies program.

For the most part we mic'd things up in a very minimalist way. If you search youtube for 'recorderman' you'll find some videos of a guy demonstrating a two mic technique for drumset. Trying in part to capture the feel of old jazz records, we set up our overheads according to the directions (one over Paul's right shoulder, and one more traditionally more or less above the hihat). We did add two other mics, one on the kick, and one on the snare, so we would be able to add a little reverb to the snare independent of the rest of the sounds. For 'In Small Portions' we also set up a pair of room mics in opposite corners of the tracking room (which is quite large). I kind of wanted the sounds of the drums on Elliot Smith's Everthing Means Nothing to Me, although the style is a quite different, as Paul played with mallets. That song is the hold up to finishing the project, as it's going to require some intense mixing.

Document

2008-05-01T13:26:00.002-07:00

This is for history. It may bore you, but there is a present at the end (but if you just read a bulletin from us, you already got it).

We spent April 13th at Chicago Sound Lab with Chris Bober. He's a brilliant guitarist, technical mastery and incredibly interesting compositional ideas. Tasteful too.

Chris and I were friends in high school, my dad drove us to see Morrissey in Detroit when I was 16. My brother lived with him a bit during college, they played in bands together too.

We ended up doing all the electric guitars for the EP in four hours. Chris went to school for jazz studies, studying guitar performance. With the exception of a second, more rhythmesque part under the solo on Love Poem everything was created on the spot, with every take quite different from the others. I don't think we really did more than 4 or 5 takes on any part, and with the exception of one tiny punch-in, everything was recorded in one go, in large part because the parts were improvised and while they could be recreated, there wasn't really a point in figuring out what had been done.

All the parts save one were done with my G&L Legacy, which is a stratocaster in all respects but name, G&L was Leo Fender's last company, the L is for Leo. We ran it into only two amps, a Valvetrain 205TB for the cleans, and a Carr Hammerhead for the more gritty parts. We used only one effect, a Lovepedal Morph (a fuzz with both germanium and silicon transistors which can be blended), and that only with the Carr.

I had a few second thoughts about the Carr prior to the session. It's a pretty high gain amp, but voiced in what can seem like a sort of classic rock way, but in my listening leading up to the session I found a lot of its tones in late-era Beatles stuff, if it had been around, it could have been used on much of Let it Be.

CSL is a cool place. It's a pre-WWII building, the tracking room has an exposed brick wall, and they have a vintage SSL board that must have at least 48 channels, it's huge. We ended up recording the amps in the live room instead of the isolation booth, hoping to give the sense that the recording was being done in a slightly more live way, rather than hundreds of miles and six weeks after all the acoustic guitar and vocal parts were finished. We're really pleased with the results.

Someday this might help someone writing a 33 and 1/3rd, if all goes well.

Here's your present:

I don't know much about John Peel. He had a radio show that bands played live on, and sometimes you could buy the recordings afterwards.

Daytrotter.com is sort of a similar thing, only you can download the the music for free. They just posted 6 songs Death Cab did for them. There's a lot of great stuff in the achieves too.

A little piece of nonfiction (for Indiana and N.C. Democrats)

2008-05-01T13:26:00.001-07:00

Our second home is the dog park, but this isn't really about dogs.

We love them (dogs), and we spend a couple evenings a week cooing over puppies, and trying to catch the action with our cellphone cameras that never take the picture quick enough.

The other thing about the dog park is that it brings together people who wouldn't otherwise every meet. Lately, we've spent more time there talking to people our parents' and grandparents' age than our own. Some people show up in luxury SUVs, others in beaters missing hubcaps, but everyone has a common interest, and everyone talks.

I talked to a guy wearing an Obama precinct captain pin a couple of weeks ago. Ohio is a swing state, but our home town is as blue as Vermont. Dennis Kuchinich is our Congressman, and he's loved here. But the guy wasn't even a registered democrat until this year, and it turns out he put up six Obama volunteers for the week leading up to the Ohio primary, and he's now in Pennsylvania working to get out the vote. The guy's big issue is the war, and in particular, the $12,000,000,000.00 a month drain on the economy it is.

Health care is probably my number one issue, and truth be told, I've read great things about Hillary's plan. Among others, Elizabeth Edwards is a big supporter of Hillary's plan, though I don't believe she's endorsed either candidate. That said, we're supporting Barack.

We'd be happy to vote for Hillary in the general election, but not only do we think she'd have a tougher battle for the White House, but that if she was elected, it would likely be an administration of gridlock and polarization. Our next president is going to have unprecedented challenges, and we need someone who has a chance of uniting and mending what is now a very fractured government and country.

Should you find yourself thinking about oinking like a pig

2008-05-01T13:25:00.001-07:00

I think I read something once about how of all the senses, smells makes the most lasting impressions on people.

I believe most people fall into certain categories, me included. I drive a VW wagon, am writing this on a Mac and so on...one of the things people like me do is entertain toddlers by oinking like a pig at every opportunity, and I did just that last week.

We’re headed to Chicago this weekend to finish up recording the guitars for our EP. Under the guise of going to my favorite guitar shop to buy a few last minute things, I sneaked out from the babysitting to the record store to surprise Danielle with a few new albums to listen to on the ride. On the way I tasted something that I hadn’t tasted since I was probably four or five years old. It was a little salty, and a little fiber-y, and immediately recognizable.

I’m a little disappointed in what I bought, but a couple weeks ago we struck gold with Thao’s new album. Check out Bag of Hammers.

We Stopped at Perfect Days

2008-03-16T14:20:00.001-07:00

Seven or eight weeks ago I started re-recording the songs that this project started with. I had a lot of reasons for this.

For the past couple of months we’ve been in and out of Metrosync, a studio that was originally built in the 1940’s for live radio broadcasts of big bands. The Beatles played live for northeast Ohio from what would become the studio’s tracking room.

Danielle added her voice a week or so ago, we’ve been trading germs all winter, and a time finally worked out when she wasn’t extra nasally.

We’re done with our parts, but we have some tricks up our sleeves, so the recording will go on. In a month we’ll be in Chicago with our friend Chris Bober who is an amazing guitarist, and hopefully in May my favorite drummer in the world will add to a couple of songs. I hadn’t planned on sharing anything until everything was completed, including mastering, but I changed my mind a few days ago.

We just uploaded a new song, We Stopped at Perfect Days. It isn’t the most complex song by any means, but I like it, and more than that, I really love what Spacey Casey Prestwood (who has been in Rocky Votolato’s touring band, among other great groups) added with his pedal steel so much that I decided not to sit on it. The final version of the song will be quite different...but this is where it stands right now.

Baby, it's cold outside

2008-03-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

This is ice, not beveled glass.

The big box in the back is our composter, it's great, you should get one too, if you do, adding worms helps a lot.

"Pray for More Dead Kids"

2008-02-24T08:56:00.000-08:00

The following is from an AP article about Brianna Denison, you can read the whole thing here.

...Outside the memorial service, several members of a fundamentalist Kansas church faced off against more than 150 counter-demonstrators.

The standoff, which occurred during a fierce snowstorm, ended peacefully when police escorted the three protesters associated with the Westboro Baptist Church away from the convention center, Sgt. Chris Lange said.

"There were a couple of eggs thrown at them and that's about it," Lange said.

Members of the Topeka, Kan., church picket military funerals out of a belief that the Iraq war is a punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality. Last month, the church announced it would protest the service for Denison because it believes God hates Reno.

Church officials said they targeted the city because local law enforcement officers failed to protect church members who picketed a Jan. 26 memorial service there for a soldier who was killed in Iraq.

On Saturday, the three protesters waved placards reading "Pray for More Dead Kids," "Don't Worship the Dead" and "God Sent the Killer."...

I've read more books than George Washington

2008-02-20T02:43:00.000-08:00

That's not exactly the truest thing I've ever said. Danielle, some day she will pass him.

Last night's Globetrekker was about D.C., a trip to Mount Vernon revealed that our first president is believed to have read over a thousand books. It seems like an admirable number given his other obligations.

I had a good tie-in for this otherwise useless information. It involved the need for health benefits and the movie Office Space, and to a much lesser degree wrapping up our recording for a little while.

Danielle read a bit of Michael Pollan's new book aloud to me. One of his pieces of advice is to not eat anything that your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize. I'm not sure if it was his illustration, or Danielle's, but we talked about gogurt (yogurt in a squeeze tube, for those of you not familiar). The book is In Defense of Food if you're interested.

Sometimes I think I would be better suited emotionally for a slower time.

I want satisfaction, I want to know that the work I do benefits my family, or my community. I want simple pleasures, but I also want some sort of real experiences.

I'm not sure how it happens, I suppose it's different for everyone. But I really think that we Americans are caught up in trading experiences for tangibles. I mean, what do so many people give up so that they can live in 3600 square foot houses? What could have been had instead of the off-white master bedroom suite with a love seat and two over stuffed chairs?

Is there a word for having a fear of regrets?

Make sure your beef bile hasn’t been recalled.

2008-02-17T21:32:00.000-08:00

Seriously, there is a market for bile? Bile?

This is your meat industry...

• Various weight boxes of HALLMARK MEAT PACKING BEEF SMALL INTESTINES.

• Various weight boxes of HALLMARK MEAT PACKING BEEF LIPS.

• Various weight boxes of HALLMARK MEAT PACKING BEEF SPLEENS.

• Various weight boxes of HALLMARK MEAT PACKING BEEF SALIVARY GLANDS, LYMPH NODES AND FAT [TONGUES].

• Six-gallon containers of HALLMARK MEAT PACKING BEEF BILE.

• One- and six-gallon containers of HALLMARK MEAT PACKING BEEF BLOOD, .2% SODIUM CITRATE ADDED.

The Kuch and my own UFO story

2008-01-27T16:41:00.001-08:00

I can't really express my sadness about Dennis feeling he needed to abandon his White House bid. I know he is completely unelectable, but I for one love a guy who takes his own green tea out to breakfast, and then takes the teabag home to compost it. I'm not sure there's enough idealism in politics.

Danielle and I watched a documentary on Sargent Shriver last night on PBS, ain't no party like a Lakewood party...anyway, what a great man. I think people of my parents' generation realize that, but I think JFK and LBJ get a lot of credit in the history books that he deserved, and that Dennis and Shriver are cut from the same cloth.

My mom and I talked about Obama's win in South Carolina this afternoon, and a bit about Dennis dropping out. Her candidate dropped out a few weeks ago (Dodd). My mom has funny fears about candidates and their electability (the spell checker says this isn't a real word, with the 'a' or an 'i'). I remember her worrying about Obama seeming like too good of an actor after he did a commercial for a football game a year ago that seemed as though it might have been him announcing his candidacy. Maybe a little more of real concern, she worried about the media talking about Dennis and UFO's forever.

When I was little, there were two types of kids in my neighborhood. Maybe not really types, but camps. G.I. Joe and He-Man. I couldn't respect anyone that liked He-Man, it didn't really help that most of those kids lived in houses that smelled like their moms were always cooking Goulash in a crock pot. My bestfriend kind of road the fence, but at the time he seemed like he was the best of the lot. I have a distinct memory of us lying on our backs in the field part of my elementary school's playground (he went to Catholic school), and seeing what I believed were dozens of UFOs. There weren't any lights, but they moved too quick to be planes or birds, and their movement wasn't of this world. Years later I would learn I probably had a case of vitreous detachment (a lot of eye floaters at once).

As for politics:

Is Arnold Schwarzenegger master of Texas?

2008-01-21T14:43:00.001-08:00

A friend of Danielle's has a bigger interest in China than I do. He and his wife are there right now, or maybe just got back. On one of his previous trips he wrote down the words to a folk song that in large part lead to the songs I'm working on (writing, not recording) right now. Darren and his wife were asked the following questions when they spent a little time with an English class:

Is Arnold Schwarzenegger master of Texas?

I heard one of the backstreet boys died in 9/11 - is this true?

Do you think Alfred Noble traded in death?

Have you ever explained in front of the white house?

Can you give me a visa?

Tell more about Canadian boxing.

I heard someone disappeared the Statue of Libetry. Is this true?

Right now, can you write your family history on the blackboard?

What do you think of the movie The Big Liar?

How many movie stars are your friends?

We saw There Will Be Blood today. We were throughly impressed. The only downside was another movie-goer (I suppose in a packed theater there's always one). She had a habit of laughing at very inappropriate times, like when a character who had been deaf since childhood spoke...she also checked her watch with a little flashlight every couple of minutes. She had one of those canes with four feet, and toward the end of the movie I was rising out of my seat to take it away from her (I was going to try to make her behave to get it back) when Danielle's cellphone rang. It stole all my thunder.

Space Cadet

2008-01-16T14:02:00.001-08:00

There's been a bit of a plague over our house. The details of which seem to be more appropriate for little kids to discuss than you and me, so I'll leave them to your imagination.

You can't stop progress. I'm not sure that's true, I just wanted to say that work continues on the EP.

I've been a bit of a hermit lately, I didn't make it to any Christmas parties this year, we stayed in by ourselves on New Year's Eve. But I have been making a few phone calls to old friends. My friend Tony and I talked a bit about the idea that sometimes absolutely crazy occurrences have fueled great bands or recordings. I haven't pulled out all my crazy stops for this EP, but here's a little story with some listening recommendations.

Danielle was a big fan of Koufax (listen to Let Us Know) from way back, she introduced me to them. I'm not sure if we've missed them in Cleveland since, probably, we're discovering we aren't very good at staying on top of who is on tour (if you have a couple of extra Wilco tickets, let us know). A few years ago I had a real musical experience (I know, it sounds completely corny) at a Koufax show. I love music. I love art, books, poems, architecture and so on, but I'm not sure any of the others have really raised the hair on the back of my neck in some sort of religious sort of way, actually, maybe architecture, but only in a context, not by itself. Casey Prestwood was playing with one of the other bands on the bill, and sat in on a song with Koufax on pedal steel, and really just sent me reeling. He's been playing with Rocky Votolato of late (I still really love White Daisy Passing, which will always remind me of driving along Lake Champlain on the way home from Burlington). He deserves all the success and fame in the world, and he's going to appear on one song on the EP. Six different takes are on their way to our mailbox, I can't wait.

Ham-fisted

2008-01-10T21:54:00.001-08:00

I'm fairly certain I finished my parts on the EP today...which included a punch-in on Love Poem to fix an out-of-time chord, and redoing the entire guitar part for the title track (it's a better title than song, but it is a fine song).

I'm still reading Geoff Emerick's book about recording The Beatles...he doesn't seem to like George much, nor really respect his playing which he refers to as 'ham-fisted' more than once. I think the same could be said of me, actually, I think 'guitarded' is better.

We toyed with running some vocals through a Leslie, but after quite a bit of listening and scrutinizing, I'm not sure it's going to stick...on The Beatles theme, the idea was based on John's use of the spinning speakers on Tomorrow Never Knows.

Danielle is still recovering from a horrible Christmas sinus infection, but we're hoping she can record next week.

We saw Juno on Sunday, it was good. We've been quoting it a lot the last couple of days. Sonic Youth's cover of The Carpenter's Superstar is on the soundtrack...I've always thought some of the bass tones on it have a real piano-like quality...so I decided to add a few (3) notes to a little transition...they're great, maybe my favorite thing I did today. Metrosync has an old rebuilt Steinway grand...it sounds huge.

I had higher hopes for my own singing...there is some chime to the recordings we did with our friend Bob in our living room that isn't there on these recordings, but then again there is a lot that can happen to them still...

Leaving the Free Clinic with tears streaming...

2007-12-31T10:55:00.000-08:00

The week before Christmas we were rear-ended. No one was physically hurt. The other driver was well dressed, though I think she was driving a Ford Tempo, (for those of you younger than us) which was replaced by the Taurus, which has also since been replaced. It was a real beater, and had 30 day tags. I felt bad for her.

The driver said she was looking for an address for an interview she was late for, and I believe her.

Unfortunately she didn't have car insurance or a driver's license (I'm not sure which is worse in the eyes of Johnny Law), but it didn't really matter as she left the scene just before the police arrived. She did give me a social security card, though it now seems as if it was someone else's card, the officer that made the report stopped by our house to see if a picture of the true owner of the card was the woman who hit us, it wasn't.

There is a bit of damage that we'll have to eat the cost of repairs for.

I've been fragile lately.

Before I tic, a lot of times I get a sensation not unlike a charlie-horse in the back of my head. For the better part of this year, when I'm particularly down I've also had the sensation that my skull is quickly expanding inwards at the same place, sort of choking out my brain. I can't shake the feeling anyway other than by going to sleep, sometimes a couple hours of napping does the trick, and sometimes it takes a couple naps of that length.

After the accident we didn't have much time before an appointment with my psychiatrist. He may be my favorite doctor ever, and I've had some good ones (Danielle doesn't care much for the story about the young doctor telling me I had a runner's body while she put a catheter in, but I'm going to keep telling it until my dying day, it will only get better as I need a cane, and then a walker, and then a wheel chair). I used to see this doctor at the Cleveland Clinic, but I now see him at the free clinic.

The free clinic is actually really great, pretty much exactly what you imagine socialized medicine to be - far less paperwork than a normal appointment, and you walk out having paid nothing, and with a pile of medicine. I didn't feel the least bit rushed, which isn't the case when a 40 minute appointment costs $480 with the same doctor, just blocks away on the same street.

At any rate, I was at my worst for the appointment, too far gone to talk most of the appointment. In some ways I'm very thankful the doctor got to see me in that state. He started me on another medication, my third anti-psychotic to go along with a pair of anti-depressants (I'm not taking them all at once). I'm not wild about being on all of these drugs, but the worst side effect of the newest one is that it dries me out. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with my tongue stuck to the top of my mouth, sure that when I free it, a piece of tongue-skin will still remain, not unlike a scrap of tissue paper accidentally glued to an elementary school arts and crafts project.

A technical journal of our recording session.

2007-12-31T10:54:00.000-08:00

The acoustic was recorded in the shell, with two Royer R-122's (I'm not sure what model within that line, perhaps the active ribbon). The sound I was going for is maybe similar to Neutral Milk Hotel - Jeff Mangum's acoustic sounds on Oh Comely might be the masterpiece of recorded acoustic guitar in my mind, which is to say a lot of bottom end with enough treble to have a sharp attack. I'm really pleased with the sounds we got last night...there are nuances in the tone of the guitar that are absolutely crazy. Things I'm not sure I've ever heard before, and definitely not in any recordings I've done at home with lesser equipment. Someone posted something about a Komet amp on a forum about guitars and tone that I read, saying that someone else in their band asked them how a single note became a chord when played through the amp...I had the same sort of experience while recording last night...if I had a copy of just the guitar at all I'd post it, but unfortunately everything I have includes my singing, which I'm not comfortable putting out there in a rough mix state - I'm not wild about my voice at all, and even though I'm not a perfectionist, I'm keeping the tracks private until a little studio magic can be worked...I think in 4 songs I never did more than 4 takes, and the majority of the takes on the song that I kept having to try over was because I kept placing one word on a beat when I meant to put it on the + of the beat. I didn't expect to do any real vocal takes last night, but I really flew through things.

A couple of the songs end with some massive ritards, and I wanted to use a click track for the ease adding things later...I ended up having to have the click tracks made for me as I realized my limited software couldn't do what I needed with the ritards...I literally got the tracks to my liking 23 hours before the session, and only practiced with them two or three times...on one of the songs I got separated from the click during the ritard but ended up keeping the track anyway...there really were some very cool things happening that were unintended...some sound a little wrong-note-ish (and may actually be), but they sort of seem to be more ghost notes than real notes, so for now I'm planning on going with them (thankfully they are in parts that will remain just acoustic and voice where a wrong note won't just create dissonance with another part).

I can't remember all the mics we ruled out for vocals, the two closest to the camera in the picture are clearly Neumann's, they weren't really in the mix. I think the one furthest is an AKG, whatever it was it captured my voice the truest, but the Royer won out again. We did a lot of the vocals in very hushed tones with my nose literally touching the pop filter...maybe think Elliott Smith. My long term plans for the vocals are a little more involved...we're going to try a lot of things, including running them through the Leslie (think John on Tomorrow Never Knows), and we may toy with some different mics picking that up.

My overall goals for the sound aren't so much dark, but dusk, I guess you could say. I'm not going for Steve Albini by any stretch of the imagination, but maybe a little bit of a Velvet Underground sort of vibe to the recording would make me pretty happy.

This is probably going to be a pretty drawn out project, despite how much was accomplished the first night. The next step was originally going to be drums. A friend of mine from years and years ago (I mean, I've got cassettes of us playing together when bands neither of us play in anymore used to do shows together a lot) is my favorite living drummer (a modern day Keith Moon)...he's been in Europe for the last month and a half with his band, and goes back on the 16th of January...he also no longer lives in Ohio...but his dad does, and he thought there was a chance he could record the day after Christmas in Cleveland...it no longer looks possible, so I looking into him recording in NYC (I'm nervous about the difference in rates!!!), but I'm not sure it will be a huge amount of time, so it may all work out alright.

This recording has been on my mind for a long time...most of the songs were previously recorded with a pretty great home studio set-up...but I since decided that pretty great home studios aren't for me (too good to appeal to my lo-fi side, but maybe not good enough to be convincingly professional). I think I could make it work if I had an endless supply of money, but even just the mics we used for the acoustic last night probably cost as a pair more than this entire EP will to record, mix and master. I've decided that I'm not going to enter into any sorts of 'arms race' when it comes to studio equipment, from my perspective, it's a losing battle.

The Dreadful Yawns

2007-12-15T07:12:00.001-08:00

Someday soon I'll write about this past week. It was a doozy.

I've had my reasons for looking at Cleveland bands this week. The Dreadful Yawns are my pick of the litter, I'm not sure you can go wrong with them, but Due South and There's No Place Like Home are probably my favorite two songs in their player. Beautiful clean guitar work.

Taking the Easy Way Out

2007-12-10T16:56:00.001-08:00

This is my music pick blog, I'm a little late.

Everything in the works has all of a sudden become a bit more of reality in the past week. On Thursday Danielle and I toured a local studio, the main tracking room was built in the 1940's by a radio station for the era's big bands to perform live broadcasts in. A couple decades later The Beatles played in it.

I know those responsible for designing acoustically sound rooms know a lot more today than they knew then. I'm certainly not one to decry science, nor am I going to expect a better performance from myself given the history of the room. I think in the end, from a production/engineering standpoint, I like the recordings of yesteryear best.

Our friend Matt, who lives in NYC, has been in Europe this month with his band, and they'll be going back in mid-January, but it happens that his dad doesn't live far from us, and he'll be in the area for Christmas day and a couple days afterwards. We're working really hard with the studio to find a few hours for him to come in and record on 3 songs.

I've been a little consumed with all of this lately - aside from trying to track down various recordings that I want to use as reference points for the sounds I'm hoping for, I've been trying to attend to a lot of other things, from preproduction sequencing of parts, to having a new saddle made for my acoustic, which until this past Sunday had a really crazy adjustable wooden saddle that I knew could be sonically improved upon.

So maybe picking a band on Sub Pop isn't completely fitting with the idea for this blog, but here it is. The Handsome Furs Hate This City. It isn't something I'd try to emulate in the studio, there's nothing to read into it, I just like it.

Everything below...

2007-12-07T17:59:00.002-08:00

...has been selected from blogs originally posted on myspace. Everything above will be posted on our myspace as well.

Not being alone is happiness

2007-12-07T17:59:00.001-08:00

I've seen Bob Dylan three times in my life. The first time was during my junior year of college, and that was the only time what he played had much in common with the recorded versions of the same songs.

I don't blame Bob (I've heard that's what he likes to be called) for not wanting to play forty-year-old songs, or at least keep playing them the exact same way. Danielle and I saw him in Chicago the week before we got married, he didn't pick up a guitar once, spent the whole night behind the keyboard. The time before that he played guitar, but worked the same trick into the melody of almost every song (an appoggiatura for you other music nerds).

I have a love of symmetry, and to that end there is quite a bit quoted from the song just above this one in the play list. I hope to fill out an albums worth of material to put in between.

This is so (158%) Mandy Moore

2007-12-07T17:58:00.000-08:00

Now and again I think about shaving my beard. I don't like shaving. When I taught in the ghetto, Danielle once asked one of my students how old she thought I was, the guess was 40. Danielle told her I was 27, and the girl said, "Mr. Baty, you need to start taking care of yourself." I think it was the beard. I got the idea to use the Celebrity Look-A-Like thing to see if me sans beard looked like more or less attractive people than me with it. After this match came up on top, I knew I had to post this:

Watching Vermont

2007-12-07T17:57:00.002-08:00

This is the weekly music pick, so keep reading, or just skip to the link, your call.

We were in Cincinnati this time last year, well, I was pretty much in bed.

I had slipped into my deepest depression, Danielle's parents and her grandparents came to visit for a weekend, I only saw her mom, and not until they were leaving. When they were gone I heard there had been some talk of anointing me with holy water, I'm not into that sort of thing.

A typical day might have seen me out of bed for a couple hours. It's all lost time, and I'm starting to worry I'm losing it again.

Ohio's a crazy state. The southeast is squarely in Appalachia. Without traveling the back roads around it, I don't think it's possible to understand the sort of poverty that still exists there, the sorts of lives people lead there. I couldn't find a date, but this Appalachian picture is recent:

I think I missed a lot of the great things in Cincinnati. We discovered local artist Charlie Harper (his work below), an excellent south Indian restaurant, and maybe our favorite pastry shop in The Bonbonerie, but due to my own depression, we missed a lot of the local music scene, including The Great Depression. Watching Vermont is my pick of the three songs they have posted.

All and all, I'm really happy to be back in Cleveland. I think dying midwestern industrial cities are right up my alley.

Special English, fuzz, Revolution Records

2007-12-07T17:57:00.001-08:00

I just googled Chinaphile and more than 1,700 pages came up, so I guess it's safe to call myself one. If there's a term that rolls of the tongue easier, let me know. Well, let me know if that term isn't Chinophile, the first search result for that is a site dedicated to 'leisure slacks'.

I think those three sentences are better than what I was going to have them preface, so I'll just leave it at the latest book I've picked up seemed to be written in special English. I made it one chapter, but I need beautiful wording too much to keep going.

The fuzz from the subject line is about the layer of it I think I want surrounding the next recordings we make.

I think we may be very close to booking studio time for Danielle's and my parts. I've had a few different song cycles (to borrow from art music) in my head for a while, but the most realized are the adaptions of Richard Brautigan poems, two of which have been posted here for some time. I made requests for permission to use the words, but haven't heard anything in three or four months, maybe more, but tonight I think I discovered the golden ticket, and hopefully will know what I need to know very shortly.

The songs are important enough to me that I think I'd go into the studio without the rights. I could end up somewhere between Keith Green giving albums away and The Verve being sued by The Rolling Stones, but I'd be happy just seeing the songs through.

I had a little free time on the east side today. My plan was to look for used copies of Elliott Smith's Figure 8 and Sloan's Navy Blues. It would have been the third time I bought each of them, but Revolution Records was closed for a renovation. In particular, I wanted to hear the drum sounds on Everything Means Nothing to Me again, and listen to Andrew Scott's Gretsch, again.

I did end up with a copy of Phantom Power. It's kind of funny how much I obsess over words, yet it wasn't until the 8th track that I decided to listen to see if the album was in English.

Our Spanish Love Song (not ours)

2007-12-07T17:56:00.000-08:00

This is me making good on our weekly music pick. This isn't what I had thought I would recommend.

Off and on for the last three hours I've been trying to sleep. I'm anxious as all get out, having compulsions to tap my fingers in very specific patterns over and over again, sometimes on a living thing (thankfully Ramona has been sleeping with us lately). I'm trying to ration my Xanax, I haven't got any refills, or the money to see my psychiatrist.

I started the 33 1/3 of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea last night, and tonight in between failed attempts to fall asleep, read more.

There is a half page devoted to the music that the band listened to while in their van out on tour. My plan was to lookup something obscure and offer it to you, but instead I decided I needed to see if there was a myspace for Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, which Jeff Mangum and friends all agreed they liked. I didn't find one, but someone put up a space for Charlie, and there is a duet with Pat Metheny there that is wonderful.

I dream of Audiophile 11/17

2007-12-07T17:54:00.002-08:00

I'm not sure the guy who wrote the column (on Salon.com) actually liked everything he wrote about, but I don't remember him ever taking aim at anyone. It was always a little unpredictable, sometimes a download of a track yet to be released by someone huge, or sometimes one from an extremely obscure artist, but I always looked forward to it. Taking the dog out, coffee, and on weekdays, Audiophile.

Salon discontinued the feature a few months ago, citing relatively few page views for it. I'm not ambitious enough to try to take its place daily, but I've been thinking that maybe I would try to cast some light on other folks here on myspace that deserve it.

My introductory pick in what I hope will be a weekly blog is Rachel Ries, particularly her song Chicago, which you can download. It may even be better than Sufjan's song of the same name.

I can't say I know her, but we may have stayed in her apartment one or two nights. Before my brother was married, I think they were roommates, if not, she lived upstairs from him with my sister-in-law.

I love you too but I’m gonna mace you in the face

2007-12-07T17:54:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago we had a meal at Udipi Cafe that was supposed to be a precursor to a night at the movies to see The Darjeeling Limited. I went with Palak Paneer, and Danielle had a masala dosai.

I'm not sure I'd try to make another movie after Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums, then again, if I was Jakob Dylan I would have become a dentist or a lawyer. I have no negativity towards the film, as always, the music, cinematography and dialog fit together like a puzzle. The plot didn't leave a lot to resolve, but it wasn't a picture driven by plot, and Wes Anderson can develop a character better than anyone I know save maybe David Lynch.

We got there just in time to see the trailers for these promising movies: Juno in which Michael Cera knocks up a girl and Jason Bateman hopes to adopt the baby. We miss Arrested Development so much. Also, Margot at the Wedding, which looks like it might have a redeeming role for Jack Black.

We were married in San Francisco, at City Hall, actually. Maybe that means nothing to you, or

2007-12-07T17:53:00.000-08:00

We were married in San Francisco, at City Hall, actually. Maybe that means nothing to you, or maybe you remember the month or so during which time the mayor of SF performed and allowed gay marriages in the city despite state law, or much less likely, The Wedding Planner. I'm not sure if J-Lo offers to arrange a wedding there, or gets married there, but there's something to do with weddings and city hall in it. It really is a beautiful place, one of the modern wonders of the world.

We didn't have a witness, but we did decide we should have a photographer. Before the ceremony, she made a little small talk, and at one point offered "I bet you're a sensitive guy".

I am a sensitive guy. A few weeks after Danielle and I first kissed, I started having weird convulsions after kisses. We had doctor's orders to make out during medical tests, and at first it seemed that kissing Danielle had an electrical impact on my brain, but that later proved not to be true.

I'm sensitive to a lot of things, as far as setting off the tics (they're more related to Tourette's). I think in order of discovery, it was certain physical contact, not just lips, but also having my feet touched by a balding emergency room doctor with slurred speech. The sound of fingers snapping, watching someone's eyes blink, standing next to appliances giving off heat, sitting under air conditioning vents, the smell I associate with frat boys (walking past an Abercrombie & Fitch), the smell of chemical cleaners, getting into a car that's sat in the sun, and so on.

I'm not sure where all of this started, though at times I suspect it was related to a chemical spill near where I was born when I was in elementary school. I spent sleepless nights researching the spill recently, the Ohio EPA has no records of it, though I could find articles about it on the Washington Post's website. I grew up in Ohio, in a tiny town...

This isn't really going where I thought it would, I wanted to write about Whole Foods' body wash. It comes in a few flavors, we always bought peppermint, but recently got a bottle of citrus. I was skeptical that it would send me twitching, but it didn't. It also doesn't take upwards of three hundred years to biodegrade like some other shower gels. The citrus smells a little like the taste of a mouthful mismatched Jelly Bellies, I recommend it.

My troubles with twitches really started with a new job a few years ago...I had been teaching in the inner city of Cleveland, I split time between two schools, of which I had a love/hate relationship. After two years, I decided I had to get out of one of them, and talked the principal of a new model small high school to create a position for me. For the first year, I taught instrumental music with a dry erase board, and in the second year, I got instruments for a third of the kids I would see, which happened to be about the same amount as would fit in my room as class sizes went from being capped to 15, to as many as 47 in my case.

In the words of my overly effeminate former student who was shot in the elbow at school today, my brain went from being lightweight crazy to the super heavyweight champion of the world while working there, and I lay most of the blame on the place. It offered few opportunities for feeling successful, despite being horribly misnamed SuccessTech.

I once accidentally sent an email cleverly calling it SuckcessTech to all my colleagues.

I'm not sure what I really think of the situation today, a lot of the school district's short comings were highlighted today, or rather, will be soon when it's discovered that the metal detectors that the students don't actually pass through don't even pick up things like the handfuls of music stands I've carried past them...that despite the number one stated goal of the district being the student's safety, the district moved the building's one security guard from the floors with hundreds of students, to the floors where a handful of low level administrators worked, despite parent petitions urging the district otherwise.

Ultimately I'm thankful all the injuries were all superficial save the shooter (I had his older brother and fellow Dennison Street Boys gang member in class), but maybe even more, I'm disappointed that there will be another discussion of gun control, with no steps taken to get handguns out of the hands of a 14 year old kids.

So it seems I'm a bastard

2007-12-07T17:52:00.000-08:00

It's my mom's birthday, and she's now of age to receive my father's social security benefits. Part of the application process involves sending a copy of their marriage certificate.

My mom is a full-fledged librarian, and every bit as organized in her home life as she is in her job. It was a little surprising when she couldn't find the certificate, but she did what ladies her age do, she wrote a letter to the records department of the appropriate county to request a duplicate. The county's response was they had no records of the marriage.

My brother and I are bastards.

Our cats are crazy for guitar strings, and not long after I changed a set recently, Woo (the one at the head of the bed) started missing tuffs of hair on her chin. Strings can be prickly, and hard to throw away without making a real effort, so we thought maybe she had been digging them out of the trash and obsessively compulsively stabbing herself with them. Things took a turn for a worse, and after googling things like ringworm, we decided we had to take her to the vet. It turns out she just had a bad case of feline acne. Who knew cats had awkward adolescences too.

And finally, Danielle added a lot to her etsy store. Below is a barrette, there are similarly styled necklaces and brooches.

Mattel & A September 4th Miracle

2007-12-07T17:51:00.000-08:00

I'm reading Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present (amazon link below) right now, and despite the somewhat academic sounding title, Hessler is actually a journalist and former Peace Corps volunteer in China. A couple months ago I read his River Town, sort of a journal of time teaching English at a teacher's college in a remote Chinese city. In this book he's back in China and among other things including stepping into North Korea, visits a few former students, of which one lives just outside the gates of a Shenzhen, one of the special economic development cities that seem to involve a lot of young Chinese living ten or more to a dormitory room making cheap jewelry or lead painted children's toys eighteen hours a day.

This morning Danielle caught a story on the national news about how a Barbie doll that sells for twenty dollars at Walmart costs less than $.35 to manufacture in China. This really isn't anything shocking or new, but I was a little surprised that it was on ABC and not just PBS.

Greediness in this country is unreal.

In other news, a few months ago I had an accident with our camera (which is in part responsible for so few blog posts), I was taking pictures of a guitar that I had decided to sell, and as I moved to close the case, the wrist strap on the camera snagged a tuner and the camera was pulled from my hand. It fell not more than a couple of inches, but that was enough for a dark spot to show up on the display, and in every picture that was taken after that.

We've had the camera for a couple of years, and were little disappointed with it in a few aspects, so while it hurt to be in the process of selling something and add a new expense, we didn't take it too hard as we wanted to get something that would take better pictures in low light. It's sort of been a fiasco ever since, and I've come to hate Sony even more, but that's not the story today.

At the end of the summer season, on the last day that the Lakewood Park pool is open, you can take your dog swimming. We'd never gone before, for some reason the date or time never worked out for us. We wanted pictures, and decided that maybe we could crop out the spot, and when we turned the camera on, the spot was gone. It still sounds a little like there is gravel in the camera, but it still took these pictures:

You've a romantic streak

2007-12-07T17:50:00.002-08:00

We saw Once on the cheap at The Cedar Lee last week. I've had my share of anxiety attacks in movie theaters, strangely, Danielle's dad has too, and hasn't been to a theater since Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but I try to keep calm and carry on, and only had a few restless moments during the movie.

I feel a certain affinity to Glen Hansard, maybe it's our red beards and curly hair, penchant for acoustic guitars, or my Irish stock, I don't really know.

Brothers from other mothers?:

It's not the band I hate, it's their fans

2007-12-07T17:50:00.001-08:00

Aside from farming cucumbers, I spent summers in high school playing Mario Kart in a friend's basement. There are certain conversations that took place there I can remember having more than once, and one of them is about the idea that concerts are sometimes better as memories than they were the first time around.

I'm still mulling over the Built to Spill show from last Monday. As per our usual, we ended up on the side of the stage, which is often a disappointing vantage since the soundman has no idea what is going on over there. For Built to Spill it wasn't too bad, the vocals were low as always, but I was their for the guitar work.

The other thing about the side of the stage is the people watching. We ended up sandwiched between some real squids, the type of guys that you see talking on Conan O'Brien for a second or two before the screen freezes and a big red 'Ass' gets stamped on the picture. The first guy came in making some sort of backhanded apology to his friends for being late while bragging about having just gotten to second base, it was 'tight'. Another salvage of note was wearing flip-flops, polo shorts, and some sort of track jacket style long sleeve shirt. He often had a 24oz. Pabst in each hand and one foot off the ground. He did a lot of air drumming and a little talking about his days of playng JV Baseball. I really regret not getting him to pose for a picture.

In general there were a whole lot more backwards baseball hats than I could have ever imagined.

We didn't get any good pictures because our camera doesn't like the dark. The best I could do was with a really slow shudder speed.

3 pictures

2007-12-07T17:49:00.000-08:00

Pistol Packin' Grandpas

2007-12-07T17:48:00.000-08:00

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Even at 69 years old, Russ Geis has enough vitality to bike through Stark County's remote nature trails.

He said the .380-caliber handgun on his handlebars will ensure he's doing it at 70.

Geis is among a growing number of seniors licensed to carry a concealed firearm. Because of the way the state collects such information, it's hard to determine exactly what portion of concealed-carry permit holders are 60 or older. However, some local permit data and anecdotal information indicate they have steadily packed heat since the state's concealed-carry law passed in 2004.

"You are out in a park, riding a bicycle trail and all of a sudden you're confronted by a drug addict who would kill you for $5," Geis said. "Are you going to sit there and say, 'Boy, I hope the police show up?'

"Having a concealed weapon today is more to my advantage than it perhaps would've been when I was 30 years old."

About 12 percent of all concealed-carry licenses issued since 2005 by the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office have been to people 60 and older.

I think America was a better place when old people watched Matlock instead of CSI.

I've heard you say many times...

2007-12-07T17:47:00.000-08:00

That you're better than no one
And no one is better than you.
If you really believe that,
You know you got
Nothing to win and nothing to lose.
-Bob Dylan

I promised a blog about Bill McKibben's Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age some weeks ago, but it never really materialized. I'm making the effort today.

The book boils down to an argument that in some areas technology has reached a point where it would be dangerous to push beyond, with those areas being genetic engineering and nanotechnology.

McKibben is accepting of a number of areas of genetic engineering, such as in somatic therapy (where genes are inserted by a retrovirus to a person's genetic code so that they will produce something they didn't previously, or fight something they couldn't before, or some such thing), but he strongly cautions against germline genetic engineering, in which an embryo is engineered in a manor in which it will pass those modifications on to its offspring.

The concern is that people (in the extremely near future) with have the ability to engineer their children to have enhancements to any number of qualities, musicality, mathematical ability, or more or less, whatever their parents desire them to have.

I'm not sure I completely buy into McKibben's point of view though. One of the cornerstones of his objections is that it will create new classes of people. He poses questions such as how parents will be able to love their children equally when one has been engineered (or engineered with better technology) and the other has not. He wonders about what the meaning of running a marathon would be if you were created in a test tube to be a long distance runner...

I'm not sure 'maintaining' a classless society is the strongest case against genetic engineering.

The middle section of the book, before a return to genetics, concerns nanotechnology, microscopic robots able to perform any number of tasks, often involving deconstructing atoms and rearranging them into something new and desired, spinning straw into gold, essentially. Besides the dangers of scientists getting in over their heads, their is a danger of nanobots (which often seem to be able to reproduce) being able to be created by rogues much the same way as computer viruses.

One of McKibben's weaker arguments was that nanobots could reduce the workload of people of the world, as a potato, shoes, or anything you wanted could be synthesized on the spot, and that people would suffer from not having meaningful work. It seems to be a bit of an out of touch comment from someone who draws their paycheck from a university on the grounds of being a thinker - I'm not sure he even teaches or contributes original research...I can't think of too many people who justify their existence by a 9 to 5, especially in our increasingly service oriented society.

There are some really crazy anecdotes, a vignette about an artist in New York who had a rabbit genetically engineered with DNA from luminous deep sea creatures to have fur that glowed...and from that standpoint I don't regret reading the book; however, the quality of the writing was a little lacking, and often he seemed to discredit ideas and scientists by quoting their often outlandish views on completely unrelated topics - for example, Rael, who some of you might remember as a former sports writer from France who claims to have been abducted by aliens and later vowed to produce the first cloned human, is often cited when discussing cloning.

Rhinoceros

2007-12-07T17:46:00.000-08:00

Here's the last of the zoo pictures I'm going to post here, and it's one that I'm really happy with. If you want to see the rest of the photographs from our trip to the zoo visit our flickr page.

Informal : hooligan. Slang : goon, gorilla, hood

2007-12-07T17:45:00.002-08:00

And my personal favorite:

God Bless the Lemurs, All of Them

2007-12-07T17:45:00.001-08:00

If you're a Cuyahoga county resident, you can get into the Cleveland zoo for free Mondays. We'll be posting pictures over the next couple of days of our most recent trip. Today, it's all about the lemurs.

I'm not wild about this last picture in terms of anything but the content. These pictures were all taken indoors and through glass, and the lighting made things difficult for our camera.

Yes, boy, I could sure go for some beef stew and a chicken bone. That's it.

2007-12-07T17:43:00.002-08:00

The last words of Ohio's latest execution victim.

In other Ohio news, Sherrod Brown voted for the Iraq funding bill, I'm a little disappointed in him for that, but I suppose it's only funding the war through September.

Also this week, a reverend who has served time for armed robbery and manslaughter was found guilty of stealing $1.4M from the state for reporting a charter school he founded had more than four times as many students as it actually did. I guess you don't have to pass a background check to found a school that is funded with public money in Ohio, which is strange because my mom had to have one when she served as a consultant to the library at the catholic high school in my home town.

As a former public school teacher, in a district that has lost 20,000 students in the last decade, many to charter schools, I have to say this isn't really shocking. I know there are some great charter schools, but on a whole they perform worse than the public schools in the same neighborhoods, and have a history of corruption. The state of Ohio still allows charter schools that receive public money to operate for profit.

A Covert Class War

2007-12-07T17:43:00.001-08:00

I spent a part of the morning in the parking lot of the United Labor Workers office. Danielle is a finalist for a job there that offers experience in all aspects of non-profit administration, we should find out in the next day or two.

I didn't think about taking a book until I was nearly out the door, and didn't go back for it. A couple years ago Danielle ran down our car battery while I was in an interview, and weary of doing the same, I only sporadically listened to NPR. The discussion was immigration.

I have to say, of all the issues that are dominating politics at the moment, this is perhaps the one I know the least about, or rather, I know the least about why people have such strong feelings against immigration, and why amnesty seems to be such a dirty word.

What I've gathered is that a lot of people don't like the idea of having to pay for a public education, or health care for immigrants. What I don't understand is why they would rather pay for the public education and health care of a citizen performing the same work at roughly the same pay (I know that illegal immigrants are often taken advantage of).

I also don't understand how many of these people so angry about immigration are also opposed to a minimum wage increase, or making companies who have profits in the billions every year treat their employees responsibly.

I guess if a class war is taboo, then these are the lines that it will be fought on.

Some real whack jobs

2007-12-07T17:42:00.000-08:00

When asked what they would do should a suicide bomber targeting an American shopping mall be apprehended, here are the responses of a few of the republican presidential candidates:

"I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they could think of. Shouldn't be torture, but every method they can think of." Giuliani

"I don't want them on our soil. I want them in Guantánamo where they don't get the access to lawyers they get when they're on our soil. I don't want them in our prisons. I want them there...some people have said we ought to close Guantánamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantánamo." Romney

McCain actually sounded the most sane.

This Goes Out to All my Baby Mamas

2007-12-07T17:40:00.002-08:00

Lesya Ukrainka, poetress & Other pictures

2007-12-07T17:40:00.001-08:00

The three of us decided to skip the YMCA today and spend some time walking up and down MLK Blvd. We've been wanting to take the camera over to the east side for a while, but have been putting it off until the flowers were in full bloom, but the weather was too nice to delay any longer.

For those of you who aren't Clevelanders, MLK connects a major highway with University Circle, which is home to Case Western Reserve University, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance Hall (The Cleveland Orchestra), The Cleveland Institute of Music, The Cleveland Institute of Art, The Cleveland Museum of Natural History and a number of other cultural and educational institutions.
The MLK cuts through some 50 acres of Rockefeller Park, which was donated to the city by John D. Rockefeller.

Here are some pictures we took:

Guns

2007-12-07T17:39:00.000-08:00

From Salon's Tim Grieve:

Asked today whether the incident might cause the president to rethink his views on gun control, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino expressed horror over the shootings but then said: "As far as policy, the president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed. And certainly, bringing a gun into a school dormitory and shooting numbers -- I don't want to say numbers, because I know that they're still trying to figure out how many people were wounded and possibly killed. But obviously, that would be against the law and something that someone should be held accountable for.

I'm really curious as to how you hold the dead accountable.

Tying a man named Hooky's tie & Carson Daly

2007-12-07T17:38:00.000-08:00

Danielle and I went to Massillon yesterday afternoon, her parents are dogsitting Ramona for us while we go to Chicago this weekend to see my brother, his wife, and Olivia - who made us an uncle and an aunt last fall.

Danielle's mom was home when we got there, and one of the first things she said was that their neighbor Hooky (who's given name is actually Homer Ronnie) was getting ready for a job interview and needed help tying a tie...and that she had offered my services. When she called to say we had arrived, and he could come over, Hooky told her he had figured it out, but he still needed help ironing a pleat into his pants...I declined that.

After a brief stop at Taco Bell, we made it home for the last couple minutes of Conan...Carson came on immediately afterwards as he always does, but I've never understood why (or why he wears tennis shoes and and ankle socks with a suit)...I'm not sure his reputation had anywhere but up to go with me...but my goodness...

Another food blog

2007-12-07T17:37:00.001-08:00

Among our errands today, Danielle and I did a little shopping at the West Side Market. We try to be very socially responsible with our shopping, we buy local when we can, our coffee is always fair trade, and we use canvas grocery bags.

We spent most of our food budget at Whole Foods on Monday. I'm torn about that...I really respect Whole Foods, they pay their hourly employees extremely well ($15 an hour on average + benefits). The store in Cleveland (University Heights, actually) hired 14 of Cleveland's Lost Boys of Sudan...I want very much to support them, but I still feel as though we should do the bulk of our shopping at the West Side Market. For those of you not from Cleveland, you probably wouldn't know that it is the largest indoor market in the states, or at least it was up until very recently...I haven't heard otherwise. Also, my cousin has a booth there, she's Cambodian and sells many many Asian spices, sushi mats, and related things.

Here are a few pictures I took today:

For more pictures, check out Danielle's blog.

A McBlog

2007-12-07T17:33:00.000-08:00

"What goes on the tummy isn't as important as what goes in the tummy."

I guess McDonalds seems to think everything they list as an ingredient of Chicken McNuggests belongs in a growing child's belly, including the The Omnivore's Dilemma:

"...McNuggets also contain several completely synthetic ingredients, quasiedible substances that ultimately come not from a corn or soybean field but form a petroleum refinery or chemical plant. These chemicals are what make modern processed food possible, by keeping the organic materials in them from going bad or looking strange after months in the freezer or on the road. Listed first are the "leavening agents": sodium aluminum phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, and calcium lactate. These are antioxidants added to keep the various animal and vegetable fats involved in a nugget from turning rancid. Then there are "anti-foaming agents" like dimethylpolysiloxene, added to the cooking oil to keep the starches from binding to air molecules, so as to produce foam during the fry. The problem is evidently grave enough to warrant adding a toxic chemical to the food: According to the Handbook of Food Additives, dimethylpolysiloxene is a suspected carcinogen and an established mutagen, tumorigen, and reproductive effector; it's also flammable. But perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to "help preserve freshness." According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food: It can comprise no more than 0.02 percent of the oil in a nugget. Which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of TBHQ can cause "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse." Ingesting five grams of TBHQ can kill."

Below is the complete list of McNugget ingredients...which according to Pollan's book are 56% derived from corn.

Chicken, water, salt, modified corn starch, sodium phosphates, chicken broth powder (chicken broth, salt, and natural flavoring (chicken source)), seasoning (vegetable oil, extracts of rosemary, mono, di- and triglycerides, lecithin). Battered and breaded with water, enriched bleached wheat flour (niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), yellow corn flour, bleached wheat flour, modified corn starch, salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate), spices, wheat starch, dried whey, corn starch. Batter set in vegetable shortening. Cooked in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, (may contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated corn oil and/or partially hydrogenated canola oil and/or cottonseed oil and/or sunflower oil and/or corn oil). TBHQ and citric acid added to help preserve freshness. Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an anti-foaming agent.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

2007-12-07T17:32:00.000-08:00

Information about the documentary, as well as the sources of the facts that we're presenting can be found here.

WAL-MART Drives Down Retail Wages $3 BILLION Every Year

WAL-MART Costs Taxpayers $1,557,000,000,00 to Support its Employees

In Texas it is estimated that WAL-MART cheated workers out of up to one hundred and fifty million dollars in unpaid wages

Wal-Mart Managers delete time from workers' timecards

Wal-Mart currently faces lawsuits in thirty-one different States for wage and hour abuses potentially involving hundreds of thousand workers.

Wal-Mart is facing a class-action lawsuit for discrimination against 1.6 million former and current female employees.

WAL-MART SUBSIDY NATIONWIDE: $1.008 BILLION

Currently in the U.S. there are 26,699,678 SQUARE FEET of empty WAL-MARTS

1999: All new WAL-MART construction halted in state of PENNSYLVANIA due to Environmental Violations

WAL-MART Imported $18 BILLION from CHINA in 2004

Cost for WAL-MART Factory Worker to Assemble (a toy tractor): $0.18
Retail cost at Wal-Mart: $14.96

Average WAL-MART Hourly Sales Employee Earnings: $13,861

HELEN WALTON: $18.0 BILLION
ALICE WALTON: 18.0 BILLION
JOHN WALTON: 18.2 BILLION
ROB WALTON: $18.3 BILLION
JIM WALTON: $18.3 BILLION

The WALTON FAMILY Has Given LESS THAN 1% of Their Wealth to Charity
Bill Gates has given 58%

The WALTON FAMILY received a federal tax cut of: $91,500.00 per HOUR in the 2004 tax year

A WAL-MART Worker may donate money from their paycheck to the CRITICAL NEED FUND, a program to aid other employees in times of crisis, like a fire or tornado.
In 2004, WAL-MART Employees gave OVER $5 MILLION to help fellow workers, The Walton Family gave $6,000

Too far Under the Radar

2007-12-07T17:30:00.000-08:00

Under the Radar surveyed bands like Calexico, The Decemberists, Mates of State, Mercury Rev, My Morning Jacket, and more with the following questions. We'll answer them too.

What was the highlight of 2006 for either you personally or for the band?

Everything in Cleveland had been complicated for a while. I used to teach music in the inner city. My district laid off about a quarter of the teachers over the course of a couple of years, and my position went from one where I could really impact kids' lives, to one where I was basically supposed to contain kids in a room, because there was no where else they could be. For the last two years I worked for CMSD, I taught at a model small-school initiative highschool funded in part by the Bill in Melinda Gates Foundation. By the time I left, I had three times as many students as instruments, more kids each period than the fire code permitted in my room, and almost no students who had had instrumental music in middle school, usually not in elementary either.

In 2006 I interviewed for positions in Seattle (The Lakeside School, where Bill Gates graduated from highschool), Chicago (Lake Forest Country Day School), public schools outside of Boston and Amherst Mass and Burlington Vermont among others. I ultimately took a position at Cincinnati Country Day School (if you saw Traffic, that was the school). It wasn't the interviews that were the highlight, so much as buying music for the trips, and the travelling. We kind of did an Ivy League tour, spending time at Harvard, Yale, University of Chicago and Northwestern - and usually eating delicious Indian food (actually, we just discovered Udupi Cafe in Parma, Ohio - a rare Indian restaurant serving food from the south of the country - Danielle can't get enough of dosas.

What was the low point of 2006 for you?

A couple years ago I started going into convulsions, sometimes lasting minutes, and as frequently as a thousand times a day. The doctor at the emergency room, my GP suspected a seizure disorder, and the first neurologist I saw diagnosed (after an EEG) me with Epilepsy. I was put on increasing doses of three different anticonvulsants over the course of nine months - in the end I had allergic reactions to two of them, and none of them stopped the convulsions. Finally Dr. Lederman at the Cleveland Clinic realized that it wasn't Epilepsy, but a very unusual variation of Tourette's Syndrome. After nine months I was finally on the right drugs (neuroleptics, which are also antipsychotics), and allowed to drive again, but the drugs had horrible side effects. I became so severely depressed that I would sleep 23 three hours a day. One of the neuroleptics I was on is even strongly believed to cause cancer. After we moved to Cincinnati I found a neurologist that placed me on a different class of drugs that controlled my convulsions, without the depression. Nothing in the medical world seems to move very quickly, and in the end we decided it was best for me to resign my position at Country Day and move back to Cleveland (our house in Lakewood never sold). The whole fall of 2006 is lost to me. If only it worked like the beginning of Amelie, and I could stay up for the rest of 2007.

What are your hopes and plans for 2007?

I'm in the process of forming a nonprofit to provide arts education to Cleveland students now that the schools don't (can't) do it effectively. I've done my research, and shortly I'm going to be looking for other people to sign on to the Board of Directors. If you have a music or visual arts background, and you're interested, message me. I hope to make this my work for now, doing everything from finding qualified teachers, scheduling programs, and doing the financial development. I don't think anyone else should be thinking about this as a paycheck just yet (except the teachers of course), but I believe in the mission, and I think it will be meaningful for all involved.

Danielle is waiting on one more letter of recommendation from an old professor, and then she's sending in her application for graduate school. She's found a really cool Master of Interdisciplinary Fine Arts program. She's also just set up studio space in our attic, and is taking on projects from printmaking, to painting, to sewing. Hopefully soon we'll announce her Etsy store.

For the PFOC, we hope to finish our Paul Klee project, and record it. I'm really eager for everyone to hear the Brautigan recordings we made with Chris Bober and Bob. I hope we can record the same way (in our living room using Logic on a Mac), but Bob is in Japan indefinitely, and Chris is looking into grad school out of state.

What do you hope to hear more of in 2007? Less of?

I'm really looking forward to the collaboration of Wilco and guitarist Nels Cline. Cline has been a favorite of mine since his work with Mike Watt. Seeing them together on Austin City Limits has me squirming for more.

As far as less of, there are just so many bands. But probably what I want most is less NEOCON spin.

If the world were ending in 24 hours, what would you do in those 24 hours?

We'd eat a whole cheesecake, and take our golden retriever swimming (but not for half an hour), maybe watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and listen to Revolver.

If you could be one fictional character, who would you be and why?

I don't know about Danielle, but I think I'd want to be Ziggy Stardust. Despite some musical successes, and degrees, I've never felt like I was a particularly talented person. I've always just felt like I was smart enough to understand how music works, but not necessarily musically adept. It would be nice to be a glamrock star from when glamrock was cool. And it goes without saying it would be nice to have god given ass.