Cranky-D

I got the cool job, where I work at home. I start out at half-time for 12 weeks as a tryout period. They’re throwing me in right away. I will be going to Los Angeles next week to work at a client site. They were also kind enough to offer to extend my stay so I can go home and visit my father for a few days.

The downside is my flight time is very early in the morning, which means I will basically get no sleep the night before, and I’m expected to work that day. I wonder how that will turn out. I’m going to prime them a bit so they know not to expect too much. Or maybe this is a stress test of some kind.

I will not be saying very much about the job here. I will not say who I’m working for. If you want to know, ask in an email and I’ll tell you.

Man, I’m on a tear tonight. I’m up late and not UTI, and for some reason I feel like writing. Plus, I’m way behind on my writing for the dead pool. We’re required to write something about our picks once per quarter or lose them.

Another one of my music-related picks is Whitney Houston. I’m sure she’ll be the subject of a “Your Pick Sucks” writeup sooner or later. I can live with that.

I think the fact that she’s a major cokehead is common knowledge. I didn’t realize how bad she was, though, until I was clicking around the idiot box and landed on “Being Bobby Brown.” Whitney looked like she was high in every scene, though obviously she may have just been “tired,” or even better, “exhausted.” Every other time I’ve returned to the show, she looked wired. That’s not the kind of behavior that leads to a long life.

Among other things, coke will cause heart attacks, even in young, otherwise healthy people. It sure as hell will distort your sense of reality. In any case, I don’t see her quitting any time soon. Once a junkie, always a junkie. Escaping your addictions is usually difficult, and if you’re in a position such that your addictions don’t ruin your ability to live or generate an income, I can imagine that it would be even harder.

I think this situation is doubly sad because she has, probably, one of the finest singing voices of all time. I have no idea what her singing range is, but very few people on the planet can match it. Most of us amateurs are luck to have an octave and a half range. I have no idea how far she can go, but it’s a lot more than that.

I don’t own any of her albums or anything like that, but I recognize her talent anyway.

The latest news is that Whitney’s marriage to Bobby is on the rocks(scroll down about a page and a half). In the least, it appears Bobby is trying to play around a bit. Either way, Whitney will run to her comfort stuff to ease the pain.

I was at a drag show in Minneapolis, and one of the performers did a medley of Whitney Houston songs, which culminated in “I will always love you” (yes, I know she didn’t write it, but she did have a big hit from it). As the performer lip-synched the song, (s)he pointed at a container in her hand which contained some white powder (most likely powdered sugar). She then pretended to snort it. It was a big hit with the audience.

I think that performance is more true-to-life than life. Whitney will alway love her coke.

This was crossposted to the deadpool

One thing I meant to cover in my previous post, and didn’t, is to say something about BB’s music.

Both on record and in live performances, BB performs with at least one other guitar player, a bass player, a drummer, and a horn section. BB is known both for his singing and his playing. He has said in interviews that he plays his guitar as if he were singing the lines, and if you watch his face when he’s playing live, you can see him singing along to himself as he plays.

For any guitar players out there who are unfamiliar with his work (shame on you!), he tends to stick to box positions in his lead playing. The thing he is probably most known for is his “hummingbird” vibrato. You will often see his vibrato technique discussed in the lessons in guitar magazines. I know I’ve seen it there a few times, but it was all in pre-internet publications, so I can’t give you a link. I’m fairly sure you can find lessons teaching his style as well.

He’s one of the last of the old-school bluesmen.

I was trying to think of a few albums to recommend, but there are so many. The one I’ve seen mentioned the most is “Live at the Regal.” I’m pretty sure it made Guitar Player Magazines “100 essential albums” list, but I don’t have the magazine at my current place of residence. I think it was the first album of his that I bought. If you don’t like “Live at the Regal” you probably wouldn’t care for any of his other stuff, nor would you want to see him live.

I have no idea how many albums he has recorded, but I own a few of them. “Riding with the King,” which he recorded with Eric Clapton, is good as well. I was pretty happy with, “There is Always One More Time.” I’d single out a few more for mention, but my CDs are so out of order that I had to list these titles from memory.

If you like blues at all, try listening to “Live at the Regal.” If you like that, go see him before it’s too late.

This was crossposted to the deadpool.

It looks like Courtney Love got her kid back. She has lost custody due to her drug problems. Still, she is so broke she is considering selling the rights to Kurt Cobain’s back catalog, and one of her homes is (or was) up for auction. Those last two links are getting a bit stale, but it’s probably news to someone.

I knew Courtney was in trouble again when I saw her performance on the Pam*la And*rson (missing “e”s) roast on comedy central a few months ago. She kept claiming she had been clean for a year, but she was obviously either drunk or stoned. Also, a picture appeared at the deadpool which may have assisted in her getting on many rosters this year. To say she looked like death warmed over may be an insult to death.

She was on my roster last year, and I could see no reason not to include her again.

According to the proprietor of the deadpool, this pick sucks. I beg to differ. Courtney is a full-on junkie. Junkies don’t care about anything except getting their next fix. They don’t even care about dying. They only care about money as a means to score. I’m not sure how much they care about their kids. Maybe she does care about her daughter, or maybe she’s worried about how she looks to the public.

In truth, I happen to like Courtney’s music, and as one human being to another, I hope she does care about her daughter and she cleans up and stays that way. Liking her music puts me in a minority position, I suppose, since she tends to have strong negatives associated with her. However, she makes my list because junkies, even rich ones, usually end up dead way before their time.

If you are interested in hearing what I think is her best work, I suggest you hit the used CD store and pick up Hole’s “Live Through This” which has a picture of a beauty contestant on the cover. If you pirate your music, download the mp3 of “Doll Parts” which is the best song from this album. I also recommend the album “Celebrity Skin.” I used to listen to “Celebrity Skin” just about every day while I was interning in California in the summer of 2000. The songs I recommend are “Celebrity Skin,” “Malibu,” and “Boys on the Radio,” though many others on this album are good as well. “Live Through This” is probably truer to Hole’s sound, while “Celebrity Skin” is very slickly produced.

I think there’s a better than even chance that she’ll head to the big concert hall in the sky some time before Christmas 2006. I’m not sure how G-d and the angels will take to her tendency to flash people.

This was crossposted to the deadpool

There are a lot of substances out there that can have nasty side-effects, even stuff you can buy over-the-counter.

Many years ago I was still experimenting with various nutritional supplements to enhance muscle growth while on a weight-training regimen. I wasn’t interested in anything illegal, or any stuff which would screw up my body’s chemical balance. Rather, I worked under the theory that the body needs an abundance of certain vitamins and protein building blocks in order to repair damaged muscle tissue. The only thing I carefully avoid is most stimulants because my asthma medication already contains stimulants.

You do realize, I assume, that you build muscle by subtlely destroying muscle tissue, forcing the body to increase muscle mass to compensate for the loads you are applying to it.

One of the supplements I tried was from J*e We*der (missing “o” and “i”). I examined the contents and it contained various vitamins and some herbal supplements. So, it sounded safe enough. However, it may have been safe for thee, but not for me.

The directions said to take it about an hour before working out. By the time I walked to the gym, I was already in a bad mood. I tended to stalk around and glare even more than normal. I didn’t notice the connection at first, since I’m often in a bad mood. However, I am rarely in a bad mood for days on end. After an incident when I went to the Bank and almost took a teller’s head off (verbally, of course), I realized that I had a problem. I stopped taking the stuff and left it in the cupboard. No more stalking around the gym, and no more losing my temper easily.

Years later, I stumbled upon something on the internets about ginsing, and how some people have a strong, negative, mood-altering reaction to ginsing. I looked at the ingredients of the supplement, and it had ginsing in it. I assume from the results I experienced that ginsing is a stimulant.I threw it away soon afterwards.

Remember, kids, just because something isn’t regulated doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have some possible nasty side-effects.

I only took one private guitar lesson in my life. At the time, it cost as much for one hour of instruction as I made in 3 hours of minimum-wage work, so I stopped. I’ve bought some instructional stuff over the years, but again, not a whole lot of stuff.

Oh, wait, I did take a one-day group lesson with an instructor named Vic Trigger. There were about 8 of us in a room. Most of it was him teaching us how to do stuff, with us playing as little as possible (thank G-d), though we all had our guitars there. I also bought the additional materials he supplied. I think they’re around here somewhere. The tapes (yes, this was in the era of cassette tapes, kids) may be here or they may be back home.

Since I’ve started playing again, I decided that I needed some new material. I had seen the ads for something called “Fretboard Logic” and the testimonials as well as the reviews at Amazon seemed to make it look like the holy grail of guitardom. So I ordered the box set (which includes all the books plus a DVD) a few days ago. What the heck, I needed to order a calendar anyway.

I get the Boris Vallejo & Julie Bell collaborative fantasy art calendar, or as I call it, the softcore pron calendar, since it usually consists of partially naked women. Just another pron reference for everyone.

I’m hoping the new approach he advertises will get me going again. Well, it’s not really new, just new to me (I assume). Most things are just “Here are some chords, here are some licks, now go and be fantastic!” I’d like something that would help point me in some kind of direction. Maybe this stuff will help.

I was a bad son over Christmas. We were at my brother’s house, and my dad was about to launch into a story for the kids. “When I was young, we didn’t have Christmas,” he said. Before he could continue, I said, “That’s because Jesus hadn’t been born yet.”

I still laugh about that one.

More of a chuckle than anything else came soon after we had arrived on Christmas Eve. My niece asked me if I was going to church with them. “No, I’m going to hell,” was my response. My niece didn’t get it, I think, but my sister-in-law laughed.

One of my older deadpool picks is B.B. King. He was born Riley B. King “…on September 16, 1925, on a cotton plantation in Itta Bene, Mississippi, just outside the Mississippi delta town of Indianola.” I picked him because he’s getting old and he’s diabetic. Also, I had such bad luck last year with my picks, I’m hoping that picking him will keep him alive for another year.

If you have not seen him perform, and you like blues music, you have made a serious mistake that you should rectify as soon as possible. I saw him the first time in a small club some time in the 90s, I think. I was in the front row, at most about 10 feet away since the stage was pretty small. He was still standing up to play then, and he was amazing. His playing on his albums is usually understated, while live he often has a tendency to really let it rip.

The second time I saw him was in 2000, on the borders of the Bay Area in CA. He was sitting down when he performed by then. However, by that time he was popular again and was playing a larger venue. He also had numerous supporting acts, including another blues legend, Buddy Guy, who I also recommend seeing if you can.

The last time I saw BB was in 2004, I believe. He was touring with Jeff Beck. That might sound like a strange combination, but if you’re a fan of the guitar, it isn’t. Both BB and Jeff rocked the venue, which in this case was just about perfect since it was outside and held about 1000 people or so.

It looks like he plans to keep touring until he drops.

There’s a nice little relatively current writeup about him here, and you could always click around his website to get more information. If he survives, as I hope he does, I will probably spice up the next posts by providing excerpts from his autobiography, which I bought about five years ago in a used bookstore in Livermore, CA. It has been reprinted a few times, and is available from several sources (but apparently not Amazon, or I would’ve provided a link to them).

This has been crossposted to the the deadpool.

Only two short glasses of whiskey over a liberal amount of ice hardly counts as under the influence, but honesty is good policy.

I decided to start practicing guitar again. Since I hadn’t played in a long time, I figured it was a good idea to re-string the guitar first. New strings always sound a bit better than old ones. I had a few sets lying around, one set of 9s and two sets of 11s. I had been using 11s most of the time before I stopped playing. Those are kind of stiff for blues and rock playing, I guess, but I was used to them. Also, I tune down a half-step just like Stevie Ray and Jimi did.

I didn’t last more than about 20 minutes before my fingers started to hurt too much to continue. It’s been so long it’s like starting over again. I thought about it a bit and decided to re-string my other guitar, a Charvel Model 2, with the 9s. Those strings are much easier on the fingertips.

Tonight I played that guitar instead, and I lasted a lot longer, though I still didn’t last very long. I’ve also started squeezing a dense foam-rubber handgrip in an effort to strenghen the grip of my left hand, as well as a way to warm up the muscles. Even after a short time playing I could feel that the tendons in my left arm were not used to the efforts and wanted some kind of warm up and/or stretching first.

If anyone’s reading, do you have advice on a good way to have productive practice sessions? I never really learned how to do that. I’ve always just played scales while watching the idiot box, and also done separate practice sessions to learn the 7th and 9th chords and their inversions.

I think I managed to drive off a bit of traffic with my “pro-pron” stance (or at least my “not anti-pron” stance), which goes against the standard conservative agenda, so I figured I could finish the job with a bit of weepiness and whining. There’s nothing like self-pity to make other people ill. I know, because it makes me sick when I hear it.

I have no idea whether or not we only have one life here on earth, or whether our souls get recycled until we learn all we’re supposed to learn from being human. Irrespective of my official religion, Lutheran, the idea that perhaps part of our reason for being human is to learn something from the process intrigues me. That goes against traditional Christian faith, but I have no idea whether or not the Bible precludes the notion. My relatively limited biblical knowledge does not contradict the idea. In any case, the following depends on a belief that we lead many lives before we finally get kicked into the next phase of existence.

I’m fairly convinced that I’m doing penance in this life. I’m 41, never been married, and have had an embarrassing lack of girlfriends. I can count them all on one hand and not run out of fingers. The vast majority of my life has been the “between times.” Nothing lasts longer than 3 months. I have managed to avoid one-nighters. I’ve never learned to sleep with a woman in the same bed with me. Frankly, I have enough problems having someone in the same room with me when I’m trying to sleep. They might try to kill me or something.

I imagine some of my relatives have assumed that I’m gay, since I am one of few men of my generation in the family who hasn’t been married. I think there is only one other one, and he’s off living in the hills somewhere in South Dakota. Nope, I like women just fine. I just can’t seem to land one for very long.

I think there must be some kind of manual that most people get in the mail some time in their teens that tells them how to behave. I must not have made the mailing list. It seems that many men find it easy to meet women who they like and who like them. I have been able to meet women I like, and every now and then a woman who likes me. The big trick is to find one who fits both categories. Usually (if my meager experience can count as usual) I find it easier to change my feelings on the matter, since I have been completely unsuccessful with respect to changing any woman’s opinion of me.

Naturally, the older and more set in my ways I get, the more difficult the whole matter becomes. I won’t bother giving out my character trait and lifestyle rejection list, but suffice it to say it does not get shorter as the years go by. I don’t expect things to get better any time soon, if ever.

And this is what I meant by penance. I am, perhaps deliberately, separating myself from one of the fundamental experiences of humanity, interacting with another human at a very intimate level. I have found that I’m not particularly good at it, and that I’m not good at selecting candidates to share the fun with me.

I think this is because in a previous life I was some kind of randy bastard who would have relations with any woman who said “maybe.” I blush to admit I have actually turned down sex with an attractive women. What man (or boy, I was only about 20 at the time) would do that unless he were under some kind of geis? No one sane, that’s who. So, I must have consciously decided before being implanted in my latest host body that I would live a life of near celibacy this time around.

Most of the time it’s okay, I guess. Being alone does not mean being lonely, and I avoid all the aggravation that significant others can bring into your life. I talk to myself often, but I tend to like the sound of my own voice, so no harm done.

I think I’ll get myself a cat to keep me company, and quietly go completely bonkers.

Note the UTI tag: one lowball of Jameson on ice has been ingested at this time.

One of my favorite writers is James Lileks. He has an almost daily column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune as well as a weekly column he writes for Newhouse News Service. I noted something in one of his recent bleats that I thought was worth a further look:

Well, I went off on a rant tonight; didn’t mean to, but it’s been building. I blame myself; I am feeling particularly small and useless these days. For God’s sake, my primary contribution to the world today was a 300-word piece on pretentious bath towels. Seventeen more years of this, then the gold watch? How exactly is it possible that I love my job, love my life, feel extraordinarily lucky and grateful, and still want to bang my head into the kitchen counter at night. Oh, tomorrow’s podcast should be a keeper! Tune in! Hear me deal with the maddening fugue of middle age! Boring.

I don’t find what he’s doing useless at all. At a bare minimum, he provides a whole lot of people a little relief from the cares of daily life. Usually he provides prose that makes one think a bit about life and about what’s really important in life. And there are also times that he can bring on the serious like almost no one else can. And most of it, he provides for free.

Before I go on, let me note that many of us are either dealing with, or close to dealing with, the “maddening fugue of middle age,” whatever fugue means. Without looking it up, I imagine it’s a combination of angst, ennui, and displaced anger. Lucky for me I cannot have a middle-age crisis, as my entire life has been a middle-age crisis. For me, a middle-age crisis would involve getting a job and earning a real living. Scary. In any case, I don’t find hearing how others deal with such things boring.

But what I really wanted to take away from this is, ultimately, what is the meaning of life? That is a question my sister used to ask constantly as far back as I remember being conscious. Is the meaning of life for James Lileks to write columns for the newspaper that make people feel a little better (beyond raising his daughter Gnat, which is probably a primary reason for living)? And if it is, is that really a bad thing? Does life require some kind of grandiose meaning, or can it be made of little things?

Scrooge’s nephew in the George C. Scott version of “A Christmas Carol” seemed to think the little things were quite important. I tend to agree. But I will leave that alone for now.

A friend of mine and I have decided, after much discussion, that the main purpose in life is to be as happy as possible. So, if you have achieved happiness, perhaps that’s enough. I tend to think that we all have some kind of higher purpose, perhaps with respect to many other people, perhaps with respect to just one person. I’m not sure if it matters whether anyone makes a huge effect on many lives or a small effect on one life. It’s all the same to The Big Guy.

It may be that fulfilling some kind of ultimate obligation is what will make you happy. I really don’t know. I’m not even sure what makes me happy yet. Nor do I know if I have already fulfilled my mission, have yet to fulfill it, or am fulfilling it right now.

That’s life, baybee. One big mystery.

The other evenining I was watching television. As I flipped through the channels I landed on some kind of program that was soliciting the opinions of celebrities. I’ve found that celebrity opinions are usually worth what you pay for them, but what the heck. In any case, I was watching which “celebrities” were being polled more than anything else. Underneath everyone’s name it said what they were known for, be it a television show or whatever.

Then, I saw the name “Br**ke B*rke.” Note that I have removed a few vowels, notably two “o”s from the first name and one “u” from the last name so I don’t get search hits for her. Underneath her name it said “Television Personality.”

I found that to be amusing.

Most of the straight guys out there who realize what the internet is really used for know who she is. She is a pron star. I have no idea if she has ever done the real hard stuff since I, finding the hard stuff distasteful, have never seen any of it beyond a few seconds, but I certainly know she’s done some “modeling,” most notably modeling her birthday suit, as I don’t find that distasteful at all.

I wonder how you move from pron star to television personality. Is it strictly a P.R. kind of thing? Or is it more of a wink and nod deal, where everyone knows the story but no one says anything?

Maybe I’m being a bad person here. I really have nothing against pron stars, and if they want to change careers, I suppose they should. I just wonder if their former lives ever come back to bite them on the ass.

Snicker.

So far, I’ve had one phone interview and done two in-person interviews for a certain company that is hiring. It’s the same one I mentioned a few posts ago.

I’m paranoid and antsy. The fact that I’m creative also means that I’m really good at making things up in my own life. I vacillate between thinking that I’m on track for the job and thinking that they’ve already selected someone else but want to go through the process anyway for practice.

I went through a quick phone interview with the chief scientist of the company, which was apparently designed to determine whether or not I’m an idiot. I assume I demonstrated that my brain is at least partially functional since I was passed on to the next person, the CEO.

I met the CEO when I was in California. I probably would’ve never met him if it hadn’t been so convenient. He lives only about 40 miles from where my dad lives. He’s a bit younger than I am. He seemed to be a pretty cool guy. He bought lunch at a Thai restaurant. I guess he didn’t hear anything bad because he passed me down the chain.

I met another guy in my home town at a local bar. We spent half the time talking about guitars and music and various techie stuff, and the other on what they’re doing and what I might be doing. I guess he decided he could work with me. The next day, I got an email asking for yet another meet with another person, this time the same scientist I originally talked to on the phone.

I get to wait another week and a half for that one.

I guess this is on-track. I’m starting to wonder whether I should start pimping my resume in case this doesn’t work out. I know I have about 4-5 people competing for this position with me. I don’t see how they could have more specialized knowledge on the topic than I do (and need a job right now), but there’s always someone else out there who knows more.

I probably should start whoring myself to the highest bidder, but I’d rather wait to see what happens with this job. It will most likely be a lot of work, but it also appears to involve a lot of the things I find enjoyable about research.

I’m getting bored with the waiting, though.