Friday Unrelated Information

1. The Drum Doctor and his Literate Lady recently moved into an apartment in the swanky Avenues neighbor hood of SLC. Tomorrow, to christen their new pad, they will be hosting a housewarming party. Interestingly, it is starting mid-afternoon; to get the partying started early, I wonder, or to ensure its early end? I will have to find out.

2. Earlier in the day, the final door-to-door campaign push for west-side state-rep candidate Angela Romero will be going on. I am planning to participate, although the last time that I did a certain needlessly hostile former friend was there as well, emanating ice cold vibes and insisting to meet the campaign manager in a separate spot at the end of the walk - I suppose because, oh my god, I am just such a dangerous and terrifying person, she feels threatened being anywhere near me. I mean, god forbid, I might try to say "hello"...Oh, it would just ruin her day. I certainly don't need to senselessly torment myself, but I want to do all I can to push Romero to victory, even if that means exposing myself to another round of passive hatred from a delusional narcissist.

3. I have three new songs in the works: one is kind of a ska/punk number with some interesting changes, another is a lament for lovely girls that self-sabotage due to insecurity, and the final an ode to my so-called 'crazy' best friend Mr. Bombs. The final song is a little bit disjointed, with a distinctly different feel to the verse and chorus, which I think mirrors the theme of the lyrics - although Remodel Man just found it frustrating. I was showing the song to the band last week, and Remodel Man proclaimed "That was fucking confusing! Dude, I don't play math rock!". While I share his distaste for songs that are needlessly complicated or overly jammy, I think the song is an interesting mash-up of styles, with just a slightly unconventional structure...but, perhaps it will have to stay in my solo catalog...

Have a great weekend everybody, and don't let the haters bring you down!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Last night Mom, Frog, and I sang karaoke at Pipa's Asian Tapas Bar. If you haven't been to Pipa, you are really missing out. They've won the City Weekly "Best of Utah" award for best Asian fusion, and it is well deserved. From standards like BBQ pork and lettuce wraps, to exotic dishes with shark and eel, Pipa is hands-down the best 'chinese food' I have ever ingested. You're life is sorely lacking if you haven't experience the culinary masterstroke of their Snowball Shrimp. The new karaoke night, Thursdays from 7-10pm, is a lot of fun too. I tore up The Cars' "Just What I Needed," Mom nailed "I Will Survive," and Frog even stepped up to do an especially accurate rendition of Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places".

2. Tonight, Genre Zero is putting on a very special dinner show at Sun and Moon Cafe. What is it that is going to make this show special? We're going to break out all of our current material, and maybe even a few of the newer songs that we've been working out. Also between our two whole-band sets our bassist, the legendary Remodel Man, will be performing a solo acoustic set. Following that, I'll be dusting off a few of my most personal and poignant songs, before the band rejoins me to crank out our dazzling electric set.

3. Though I don't attend any more, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't stop by The Peoples' Market this Sunday, for their annual Animal Appreciation Day. This has been one of the most enjoyable days at the market in past years, featuring dogs and cats up for adoption, various animal advocacy groups, and the pets of vendors and customers alike. Perhaps if a certain someone has cooled off enough to no longer consider my mere presence an act of harassment (as the police advised it could be construed - hence my lack of participation in the market this summer), I might even stop by briefly, as I am looking to adopt a kitten...

Have a great weekend everybody!

Friday Illogical Ideations

1. I believe in ghosts, but not in the way you might expect. I think that when we actively remember a person who has passed, the chemicals and electricity in our brains making up the thoughts and memories related to that person form the 'ghost'. When we are faced with a decision and contemplate how the deceased would have handled it, or draw upon an inspirational person who is no longer living, that is the ghost 'speaking' to us. I know, kind of strange, but I am a strange person I guess. One of the songs I do, Shut Your Mouth, is my abrasive tribute to a fallen classmate and fellow veteran whose death was mocked and used as fodder for gossip by many of our more immature and insensitive peers; I like to think that live performances of this song are a kind of seance.

2. I've been struggling lately to find a good balance between promoting my music and being a pushy, tiresome, overly zealous used car salesman. On the one hand, if I do nothing to 'push' the tunes on people, no one is going to hear them. On the other, I have had a fair amount of people on the dreary facebook get upset at me for inviting them to all of our shows, and especially for posting about the shows on their profile. Ashlee"Pay attention to my blog that's all about promiscuous sex and my eating disorder so I can feel better about myself"Raggle even called me an internet troll and un-friended me because I 'shared' a couple of our show pages on her facebook wall. It's my belief that as an artist I have a bit more leeway that the average huckster. That is what I consider my music - art. I do like to have a good time when playing, and I hope the audience does, but I go to great lengths to write meaningful lyrics, and I aspire to write interesting, creative, worthwhile music as well. For me it is about something very different than just shaking asses, impressing babes with swagger, and getting free drinks.

3. In the same vein at the previous item, I have often been accused (lately even more so) of taking myself, life, and generally everything too seriously. I am constantly being told to lighten up, take it easy, get a thicker skin, not to worry about things, to stop making a big deal out of it, et cetera, etc. There have been some situations that were supremely frustrating, because these were things that I felt really deserved to be 'taken seriously', yet my carefree companions kept to their lackadaisical disposition and continued to encouraged me to do the same. A prime example: several months back while on a weekend shooting trip, the guys were doing several things that violate the four basic weapons safety rules, and when I stopped them to give them some instruction, they kept interrupting me with funny anecdotes about shooting accidents...all while they continued to wave their guns around with fingers on the trigger (although I had made them unload prior to my safety lecture). Now I am not trying to lay judgement on those dudes, I certainly wasn't trying to ruin their fun, and one of them did eventually speak up on my behalf and helped to reign in the others. But it was my strong impression that when I insisted on shutting down the shooting to give them a safety talk, they were thinking something like "Oh god, here he goes again. I've handled guns a lot before, why can't he just lighten up?" But seriously - that is how people get accidentally shot! Oh well...I am probably just over thinking all of this and taking it all too seriously.

Finally...Friday Unrelated Information

1. All of us big-time gaming nerds let out a string of collective "ooohs!" and "ahhhs!" a while back when this video of a life-size Warhammer 40,000 Rhino APC made the rounds. Created as a promotional item for the PC game Dawn of War II, this 'model' is actually a functional vehicle. Now, while seeing one of our tiny toys enlarged to human scale is plenty cool in itself, imagine how much cooler it would be to see this tank engage in a demolition derby with some similarly life-sized xenos vehicles. Well, that geek's wet dream may make the transition from our imaginations to the plane of physical reality sooner than expected. Madd Matt recently returned from Burning Man 2012 to report that this year saw a new theme camp added to the party on the Playa: Warhammer 40,000 Orks, replete with madly-engineered 'wartrukks' and 'warbuggies', green body paint, and trophy Ultramarine heads. While he wasn't able to get any photos, and we've yet to track any down online, I believe that Space Marines and Orks will be staging full-scale mock-battles in just a few short years. Keep your eyes on You-Tube!

2. I am now back home in SLC. Tuesday night, Genre Zero practiced for the first time in over two months, and while we a were all definitely rusty, it was a great relief that no one had outright forgotten songs. We've got several shows coming up, stay tuned for specifics. Also, I showed the band two new songs that I finished while on the road. I was able to record some partial demos with Mr. Bombs (who is thankfully out of the hospital and doing better than ever) which I plan to finish up over the weekend. I've rearranged the loft the create a cool home studio space. Check it out:

It's kind of set up in stations. From left to right: the "Leads & Overdubs" station at the desk has my first instrument ever, a crazy Yamaha keyboard with synth-style controls for custom sound-sculpting, the center is the "Control Station" with the mixer, monitors, and laptop, and on the right would be the "Main/Rhythm" area with digital piano. Okay, so I know it is silly to think that my little music area is cool and any kind of 'studio'...but it IS cool and it is the best studio I've got at the moment.

3. I know that this made the internet rounds a long, long time ago, but John Waters is still right.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Tucson has this establishment, called "The Loft Cinema", that is the local indie theater. They also happen to serve beers that you can take into the movie, a la Brewvies in SLC. Tonight, a group of us are getting together to go to the late-night showing of High Fidelity. This film was highly influential on the young Mr. Bombs and myself, in fact it is probably the source of much of our music pretension and snobbery, and the book by Nick Hornby upon which it is based has been on my 'need to read' list for a long time. Maybe after tonight I'll be re-energized to seek said book out.

2. We've got a lot of work to do so that we will be ready to rock worlds at a show we're playing this Sunday at The Pound. We've been working hard at getting the songs really fine-tuned, getting our loop timing just right, and building some dancy-ness into the tunes. It is a live dance music show. Sunday at 7 at the Pound: better bring your dancing shoes.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Last Sunday, as you may know, was the annular eclipse of the sun. Check out more awesome images here. I was able to see it by briefly glancing at it through sunglasses - not the best, but I wasn't going to let it pass without at least glancing.



2. It is Memorial Day weekend. You know that this holiday is to honor fallen members of the armed services, right? I would respectfully petition you to think on that, however briefly, in between your picnics, barbecues, camping trips, and drinking binges. Just a few thoughts as to why you've got the long weekend.

3. Yesterday I mentioned reading Anne Rice's "Queen of the Damned"; well, I finished it. I had actually started reading another book when it arrived per my special request at the local library, so I have now returned to reading "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon. It is about a World War II nurse who is transported, magically, to 18th century Scotland. I am at a place in the novel where she has been recently displaced in time, and fallen in with a band of Scottish rebels during the Jacobite uprising. It is a good read; not as immediately gripping for me as the tales of vampires spun by Rice, but it has a very nice feel to its words. It is one of the few books I've read that is convincingly told from a female point of view. Most fiction I've read is by male authors, focused on male characters, and anything to do with females is told through the male lens. Even Anne Rice's vampires are mostly male, and strangely they tend to fall in love with other males. The most major female characters in her stories so far have been Claudia, the vampire child, and the titular Queen of the Damned - not really stellar examples of the fairer sex. However, Gabaldon's nurse, Claire, is delightfully feminine; why her descriptions of the shape, print, and feel of her thin cotton dress remind me perfectly of Better Living's self-made clothes and talent as both a seamstress and writer. I like that the character Claire is both firmly female and determinedly firm, setting aside the confusion and fear of being lost in time to sternly admonish her highlander captors on the proper care of their wounded comrade.

Things I Like: Friday Unrelated Information Edition

* I like '90s Alternative music. I like it, big time. Probably this is because, like so many rock & roll youth, it was the first music that I felt was mine. It wasn't my parents' music that I also happened to like, it was mine. Alternative was the musical choice of most of my peers, but once I was listening to the then-awesome local radio station, I discovered and treasured a lot of music. Here are some awesome musical selections for today:

"Possum Kingdom" by The Toadies - I think every band needs a song with a part where you sing "Do you wanna die?" I wrote one!

"Not An Addict" by Kay's Choice - One of my great regrets from that time in my life (no, there isn't some kind of addiction sob story, relax!) is that I didn't go to a dream lineup show featuring Tonic, The Verve Pipe, and the late edition of Kay's Choice.

"Semi Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind - Who can forget this song? It is almost more 'Top 40' than alternative, but then I don't like genre labels; that is part of what was so cool about the KFMA in Tucson in the '90s, they played all kinds of different new music.

* I like finding fashion treasure at thrift stores, having it come to me as gifts, or especially getting hand-me-downs. Here is SLC, we've got the trusty " D. I. ", and of course Savers and other thrift stores, as well as a robust consignment shop scene. There is even a small but awesome thrift store literally down the block and around the corner from my house - "Ben's Closet Gently Used Clothes". There is no online listing or review that I can find...maybe I should make one? Below is an outfit for tonight that is made entirely of those items:

The camel hair jacket is from the DI, as is the shirt;

The trousers are inherited from my paternal grandfather;

The pocket square was a gift this past Christmas (and matches my paint and school colors).

* I am dressing up a little for a loft-warming dinner party that I am hosting tonight. I am going to make this, it is the best dish I know how to cook reliably. I am also going to shave my project honor-beard; I started letting my beard grow when we started putting in the loft, and while the whole house isn't done, I did some of the last stuff that needed done in the loft today - installed a bathroom mirror, a robe hook, and wooden pegs to hold my belts in the custom closet that is also part of the 1/2 bathroom. Now I think the time has come to call the loft officially done, welcome my friends with a nice meal and some chillin', and shave off this itchy beard.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I start next week at Westminster College. Woot! I will be a junior accounting major.

2. Tomorrow is the Mind Games Yearly Classic 3 Warhammer 40k tournament. I have got to get busy this evening finishing my last tank and 3 Marines. Luckily, I have them all well along...otherwise I would be looking at about 10 hours of total modeling work...too much to do tonight!

3. We just finished watching the last of Season 3 of The Mighty Boosh. Seriously, it may be the funniest show ever. Totally random and off the wall. Don't worry, though, I'm a shaman: my mind is like a fortress.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Today's info is actually all closely related.

2. Dustin has been soundly destroying my dad and I in Halo and in Call of Duty. Better leave the xbox alone and play the next game in our 40k campaign. Dustin also crushed me repeatedly at Magic: The Gathering. Skills: Dustin has them

3. Tonight is the in-uniform bar-crawl. Yes, I got a haircut. A mighty haircut. Should have some pictures soon

4. This weekend at the People's Market we are hosting a "book day" for local authors. It is going to be sweet. I even have a few minutes to read some bits and pieces that I have written (just some school papers and such).

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Dustin has chosen to go with Eldar as his new army, contrary to his earlier plans of Imperial Guard. He wanted the "Death Corps of Krieg" special Forge World Guard, and they were having shipping issues. He ordered his Eldar force today; something on the order of:

2 Farseer and 10 Warlock Seer Council mounted in a Wave Serpent grav tank
2 Dire Avenger squads(x12) mounted in Wave Serpents
3 Fire Dragon (x6) squads mounted in Falcon grav tanks

I am very excited to play, and I think that is a fairly solid "mechdar" (as mechanized Eldar are sometimes called) list. The weakness, which Dustin knows, is that there are only two scoring units.

2. We took the first ripe Tomato off the vine tonight. Soon we will eat it as part of a fancied-up grilled cheese sandwich.

3. Tomorrow is my 2nd Anniversary dating Better Living. I love you, honey! <3

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Better Living and I are having friends over tonight for drinks and a fancy dinner, possibly followed by more drinks! Hooray! Now I just have to get the patio set all cleaned up...

2. Dustin finally got his leave all worked out and should be arriving in town sometime during the first week of August. Hooray!

3. This Sunday at the Peoples' Market is "Jordan River Day". Celebrate this vital part of Salt Lake City by riding your bike or floating your boat to the market, as a combined bike ride/boat float will be heading up the river at 2:30pm. There will also be presentations and workshops on the importance of the river. Hooray!

4. Hooray!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I petitioned Better Living to have a Tuesday or Thursday "Project Roundup". She said no. She said it could be the "Project Review, Project Update, or Project Progress Report", but not round-up. Apparently, "there is only room for one round-up on this ranch." It was cute.

2. The Marines have recently launched a big offensive in Afghanistan. I heard on N.P.R. that the Marines are planning on clearing a southern region of the country and then setting up temporary camps and staying for who knows how long, while they train the Afghanistan Army and police in the area.

3. Water Parks! We are going to an amusement park today, that features a small water park and several water rides. It is too bad that we aren't going the Schlitterbahn in New Braunfels, Texas, because that is the greatest water park I have been to. Aaaahhhhh....nice times in the water.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Just saw Transformers 2 last night. All told, I was just as dissatisfied with it as the first live action Transformers movie. Too many human characters, doing too many stupid things, with too many stupid lines. I keep waiting for them to just REMAKE THE ANIMATED MOVIE, which was the apogee of animated action movies as far as I am concerned. I have read some hints online about introducing Unicron for the inevitable third Transformers movie. If only we are so lucky.

2. So what is this? Micheal Jackson is dead and everyone is *mourning* ?? Everywhere I look on the internet, it talks about people "mourning" his death. Is this really the right word? I don't mean to hate on the guy and his memory, or his music, but are we all supposed to wear black for a month and be sad because the "King of Pop" died? I don't know...it is always unsettling to me when a celebrity dies and the public and media talk about how it is a tragedy, but more so in this case.

3. Buy Local First Utah is starting their "Independents' Week" tomorrow to celebrate local businesses. They will be set up at the Downtown Farmers Market on Saturday, and more importantly, there will be a big hullabaloo Sunday at The Peoples' Market, involving silly games and contests with lots of prizes and giveaways.

Friday Unrelated Information

Taking (stealing) a cue from Better Living, I will reserve Friday posts for random bits of news, info, game talk, and stories that bear little or no relation to one another.

1. Warhammer 40,000 "Planetstrike". So GW came out with a new "expansion" for 40k, "Planetstrike", detailing invasions of planets from space. While that sounds awesome...I just don't know if it merits an entire new book. Also, and I might be wrong, I can't see there being a whole lot of new material in there. We already have drop pods, orbital bombardments, and deep-strike. Are there going to be rules for all sorts of *NEW* drop pods, orbital bombardments, and deep-striking? I guess I can see this sort of as the 40k version of Warhammer Fantasy castle sieges. Which are cool. But I'll bet there won't be, say, cauldrons of boiling oil for your Marines to pour down on the invading Tau. If they are going to put out this product, I would hope for it to have detailed rules/scenarios for sieges, boarding actions on enemy ships, amphibious assaults from the oceans, etc. We'll see.

2. Peoples' Market is in the lead! Apparently, someone nominated the Peoples' Market for a "Nickelodeon Parents' Pick Award" (I am assuming some parent). Now, anyone can vote online for best farmers market in salt lake city...and Peoples' Market has currently edged out the behemoth Downtown Farmers Market for the #1 spot! We're ahead 36% to 32%. So come on, you one or two people who read this, click the link and vote for Peoples' Market! You can vote multiple times; once per day.

3. North Temple / TRAX Community Planning. Last night I attended a "community planning workshop" addressing the TRAX line going in on the the west end of North Temple street going out to the airport. The Mayor and his crew have expressed their desire to turn this stretch of North Temple, home to the power plant, trailer parks, the famed Red Iguana, and some blight, into a "Grand Boulevard". So there we probably about 200 people in attendance, some of whom I knew (thank God), and we listened to different people talk about the TRAX project. It is expected to open late 2011 or early 2012 if I am remembering correctly. Then, we broke up into dozens of little "work groups", where we actually drew on nice big maps of the street what we would like to see. I was pushing for lots of greenspace, community gardens, a community supported agriculture urban farm, and of course several large, impressive 5-15 story office/residential buildings. Let us expand downtown to the West, across I-15, only instead of the empty lots and surface parking that plague the current downtown zone, we'll have green space and parks and gardens and farms. Sounds good to me anyway.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend. I won't get any gaming in, although I will probably have some painting time.

Valentine, signing off.