Month: February 2019

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Yeah, It's Pretty and All…

…but does anyone actually buy CDs any more?

I think I've purchased one CD over the past year, and even then it was used and immediately imported into iTunes. (Prince's Gold single on the recommendation of an Instagram buddy). Lots of vinyl, but only one of the spinning silver disks.

What about you? Are you still buying CDs?

*A quick search has pointed out this isn't just a CD player, but rather a fully integrated network music player that includes streaming capabilities as well as digital playback from a variety of sources, so I humbly dial down my snark quotient…

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Released 35 Years Ago Today

Alan Parsons Project: Ammonia Avenue (1984)

I used to put Pipeline on my brand new Yamaha system back in 1986 (which was when I first got it on CD) and crank it.

I miss that system. Probably the best sounding reliable audio equipment I've ever owned.

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Music of My Muses

Since we're on the subject of Philip Glass…

Many years ago I put this CD on one afternoon and as this particular track from the disc was reaching its crescendo, I was moved to begin a painting. I was lucky in that I had a blank canvas available and almost before I knew what was happening I was on my feet and sketching. After a years-long absence, the Muses had returned—in force—and they weren't taking no for a response.

This is the result:

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Palate Cleanser

No, I did not watch the Shitgibbon vomit his fecal word salad this evening, but reading the recaps and comments was more than enough to set me off. I got through a couple postings, "marked all as read" in my Political News Feed, closed the program, put on my headphones, and started playing Akhnaten.

This music always takes somewhere else, far away from real life. It always has, and probably always will. It's a great escape.

And now you must excuse me while I take my leave. The Window of Appearances has just started…

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Ambient Moodiness

I call this writing music.

I have absolutely no idea what this movie is about. I've never heard of it. I stumbled across this soundtrack while searching for the soundtrack from God's Own Country and discovered the group A Winged Victory for the Sullen along the way. This is another one available on (red) vinyl that I'm going to have to add to my collection.

Listen here.

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The Best Laid Plans

Sometimes my best—or at least what I consider my best— writing ideas come to me when I'm laying in bed wide awake at 4 am, so I jot them down on my phone's notepad for further consideration when I'm actually in a position to sit and write.

One of those ideas was "The summer of '84." I was 26 and young, dumb, and full of…exuberance. It was a great summer filled of friends, unforgettable music, a lot of sex, and as it wound down, enough drama to last a lifetime.

I sat down yesterday to give it a go, and after several hours I read through the tome and thought, "This is rubbish. No one is going to care about any of this." I realized what may have been important to me and my need to share it all in minute detail may not be at all interesting to anyone else.

Except maybe the music. There was Madonna and her sophomore release Like a Virgin, but also The Thompson Twins, Cyndi Lauper, Laura Branigan, Prince, The Pointer Sisters, Lime, Quarterflash, Pat Benatar, Simple Minds, and dance-oriented one (or two) hit wonders like Paul Parker, Animotion, The Twins, Waterfront Home, Talk Talk, Lisa, and dozens more.

https://youtu.be/9dmTbLI5mA4

All I have to do is hear any of these songs and I'm transported back to my little top floor apartment at Crestwood and it all comes flooding back to me: my first brand new car, the architectural studio where I worked, Sunday afternoon Beer Busts at The Connection, cruising ASU, buying my first hifi cassette deck (I was a late bloomer), my friend John Fortenberry and one piece of advice he imparted that stayed with me for years ("Don't yell 'Baby' out the car window at hot guys. It's rude. Yell 'DADDY!'"), Jim, Jack, Brett—none of whom are still with us—and of course Frank—an ASU boy who ended up moving in with me and served more drama than I'd ever experienced.

It looks like I just wrote about the summer of '84 after all—and hopefully without boring anyone to death.

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Because It's True

Maybe it's the insanity of the events of the past two years and the ugly, slimy, underbelly of a sizable portion of our population that those events have exposed. Maybe it's simply the late-in-life arrival of the realization of the absolute cruelty of humans toward each other—and the other denizens of this planet (thanks in no small part to the internet). Whatever it is, I'm rapidly coming to agree with Agent Smith from the Matrix who said:

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague…"

Shorter: This planet needs an enema. Something needs to hit the global reset button because we cannot continue on our present course. Our modern western lifestyle (which the rest of the world for some reason is trying to emulate) is not sustainable; at least not without some very drastic changes taking place—and frankly I just don't see that happening.

Humanity has existed on a global timescale for a very short time, and only within the last hundred years or so have wrecked such havoc on the environment that vast swatches of the world are predicted to be uninhabitable by 2100. While the scientific community is still not in total agreement, many members are warning that we've already passed the tipping point where we can do anything about it. The wheels are in motion, so to speak, and we're heading down a very warm path indeed.

This leads me to the question of intelligence. Are we really intelligent? We have large brains in relation to our bodies and are clever tool-builders and obviously able to effect change on a vast scale for sure, but is that intelligence? The dinosaurs existed for millions of years longer than we've been here, and yet there's no evidence any of those species possessed what we define as intelligence. If this thing we call intelligence really is an inevitable byproduct of evolution why didn't the dinosaurs—who had a hell of a lot longer run on this planet than we've had—develop it themselves? Why didn't they domesticate other species, develop agriculture, build civilizations? Is it possible that our large brains are actually just an ultimately destructive mutation?

And that asteroid out there? Would humanity actually come together and muster the will and the resources to do anything about it if it were spotted?

I seriously doubt it. We're too busy arguing over 2000 year old god-myths and whether members of Homo sapiens with different skin color are even worthy of being called human.