3.8.11
4:33 pm
Q: What does the man in here sound like when he laughs?
What do I win?
nothing
Enough of that.
Over the weekend, I set out to learn the keyboard line of this song that's been trapped in my head and screaming to get out like sixteen thousand hamsters on crystal meth with smaller hamsters declawed, detoothed and covered in Vaseline up their asses (not the whole song, just this goddamn two-and-a-half-second-long keyboard loop). This isn't your usual, "I keep singing the chorus to Bad Romance and it's driving me nutty LOL!!!" this is, "Every time I'm not actively thinking of or focusing on something, these notes start streaming through my mind, causing me to click my teeth together and tap my feet in time with the rhythm."
This sequence of notes has replaced silence in my mind.
First thing when I wake up and last thing before I fall asleep.
Looping.
Endless.
Murderous.
I failed in that task to replicate and, possible, hopefully, expunge it from my soul, and then said fuck it and made a dark, ambient thing that sounds a bit like Coil to me.
It's called "Just This Thing" and can be found here...
I made this piece using a keyboard and a Stylophone and Pro Tools.
I plan to do more dark, ambient stuff as the mood suits me and, although my one and only band is George Washington Diarrhea, I might start a new one for this, less vocal, more instrumental, more...I don't know..not fecal/phalli/dolphin-touching-centric sound.
Not that more than 70 people in the world have ever heard any of the music I've made, most likely far less.
The thing I'm concerned with regarding making music that involves very little musical input and/or talent and a whole lot of knob twiddling is that there's no real substance to it.
Stripped of all the effects I've layered onto it, "Just This Thing" isn't all that impressive.
Not that the final product is going to win me any Grammies, but I think it sounds cool and it definitely has a distinct, foreboding feel to it, which is what I was aiming for.
I mean, with enough work in post, knobs, buttons, switches and etc., you could probably strum a detuned electric guitar once and take the right person on a musical journey through their own spleen and back, but that doesn't say much for the composer's musical ability, of which, in my opinion, I have very little.
But that really doesn't matter as less than 70 people have ever heard anything I've done.
Which is sort of par for the course, I suppose, as four people read this.
Hi everyone.
How's things?
Good on ya.
All right, self deprecating hatespiral finished.
After recording my shitty bullshit fucking asshole piece of shit "song" on Saturday, I met with Lauren and we had some good Italian food capped off by some pretty bad Italian coffee (overtones of burned popcorn were present) and the best Italian chocolate cake I've had in months.
It was like eating Jesus' personal fudge stash, but made into a cake.
Augh, I'm actually salivating.
Pavlov was onto something...
After an excellent meal and a healthy amount of catching up, I returned home and did some grinding* in Dead Space 2, only to realize I might just be done with that game.
Fool of a Took.
The next day...I don't really remember, probably watched some West Wing, and then Chris came home from Katie's birthday thing in Philly and we watched The King's Speech, which was great, but maybe didn't deserve all those Oscars.
What happened was that Colin Firth didn't go full retard...because you never go full retard...unless you are, in fact, a full retard.
Hey, does the phrase 'full metal retard' make anyone else think of that Master Blaster guy from Thunderdome?
hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
I am now full retard.
And you never go full retard.
After finishing Perdido Street Station, I reread the first Grind Show book in preparation for spitballing ideas for the next few Grind Show books** with Phil, the second of which should, barring his fingers falling off, be finished April 1st, maybe give or take because of some extenuating circumstances in his real life.
After rereading TGS, I finally got to the Patton Oswalt book, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland.
A lot less funny and a lot more thoughtful that I'd expected, but still hilarious in places, namely the fake movie script punch-up and the essay about North American hobo songs.
If you have any interest in Oswalt's incredible stand up, you should check this out.
And, if you don't, then you haven't heard his stand up and I am better than you.
Or at least more versed in cultural literacy.
This evening, I will embark upon Stephen King's latest, a collection of novellas called Full Dark, No Stars, an excellent title which goes along with, so I've heard, an excellent book.
By the time I'm done with that, I'm going to read the most recent Dresden book, Side Jobs, which should lead me right up to the release of the newest Dresden book, Ghost Story, coming out in April.
Then, I will have read all the books there are and there will be no more.
Running beneath all this (aside from that fucking keyboard loop) is me, chiseling my way through West Wing.
I'm two episodes away from the end of season four and, I believe, the end of Sorkin's involvement with the show.
Hopefully, the dip in quality will not be too noticeable.
When I get home tonight, I think I'm going to spend a moment looking for tablature for this goddamn song so I don't blow my fucking head off.
Wish me luck.
* Grinding in the sense of doing the same, simple action again and again and again in order to make one's character more powerful, usually unfairly so, not in the sense of slamming my crotch against someone or something.
** The second of which, I have on good authority, will be called The Beauty Of The Beholder Is In The Eye Of The Cloacae.
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