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September 06, 2005
Disturbing sex, Japanese electronica, and the decline of liberal democracy
I’ve been recording a new song, I wrote the drum part and recorded the guitars and have spent the last hour coming up with a bass part, my fingers hurt. The bass guitar is a physically demanding instrument; I really needed a break, both for my fingers and my ears. You can only listen to the same song so many times in a row before you want to start killing things, even if you did write the song yourself. I’m cleansing my aural palette with some Cornelius; hi-fi Japanese electronica at its finest.
You many not know this but the Japanese make some of the best sounding records in the world. In the 80’s when American studios began converting all their analog gear to digital the Japanese, crafty buggers that they are, began buying up all the analog equipment that we Americans no longer deemed relevant. We are very dumb. Cornelius, Pizzicato Five, and Buffalo Daughter are shining examples of why. If you have the opportunity I highly recommend giving these artists a listen, they’ll blow your mind.
On another note my self imposed Buffy hiatus lasted all of 16 hours, I’ve already watched the first two episodes of season 7 and am clamoring for more. I may have to go into some sort of slayer rehab when this is all done. One positive effect might be that I’ll stop writing about it in my blog all the time, then again I might not; she does leave a lasting impression that Buffy.
So, what else is new? Oh yeah I finished mixing another song for Eric and as soon as possible will be making it available for download. The song is pretty kick ass; I had a really hard time mastering it though. For whatever reason I just can’t wrap my mind around the mastering process, it really is an art, one in which I have little experience or ability.
I should probably update you on some of the books I’ve finished recently. John Irving’s new book Until I Find You was absolutely fantastic, in my opinion the best book he’s written in a long time. The whole time I was reading it I kept saying to myself “I can’t believe how freaking good this is.??? This book is probably the most autobiographical he’s written, and deals with some pretty heavy and at times disturbing sexual situations. But anyone that’s read any of his other books probably won’t be all that surprised, disturbing sex is kind of a staple of Irving’s writing. He was recently interviewed on the Daily Show where he briefly talked about the similarity between himself and the main character Jack Burns and related a very amusing story about his teacher and mentor Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
I also recently finished a collection of writings by Kevin Smith which was super funny, he kind of gushes about Affleck a lot, but it’s still pretty cool, and there’s an interview with Tom Cruise which is pretty neat once Cruise stops talking about Scientology.
Before I read the Kevin Smith book, I read a book called The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria. This book was positively brilliant. If you’re at all interested in political theory you should read this book. The basic premise of the book is that freedom is not necessarily the product of democracy but usually other way around, and that more democracy can actually begin to limit and degrade already achieved liberties. Key to the book's argument is the concept of liberal and illiberal democracy, and the differences between the two. An example of a liberal democracy would be our very own country The United States of America (although by the end of the book he makes it quite clear that our current pattern of government is leading us away from liberal democracy.) An example of an illiberal democracy would be Zimbabwe, a country that is technically a democracy, but deprives its people of freedoms through crooked elections and violent tyranny. Mugabe is an elected leader, but he is a terrible one, and without the freedoms of press, speech, and trade Zimbabwe will never achieve a liberal democracy. Nazi Germany is also an interesting example of how a highly democratic society can become a brutal dictatorship, not through force, but by manipulating a system that was, for all intents and purposes, too democratic. My over simplified explanations hardly do Zakaria's work justice, and without the book in front of me it’s hard to give more specific examples, so I would implore you to read the book yourself.
Speaking of books, I should probably do a little promo for the Quills awards, which you can vote on up until the 15th of September by visiting www.quillsvote.com. I mention it mainly because the one volume edition of Jeff Smith’s Bone has been nominated for best graphic novel. Dave let me borrow it sometime during the winter, and I read almost the whole thing in one day. I couldn’t keep myself from reading it, it’s really one of the best fantasy stories I’ve ever read, and I’d like to see Jeff Smith get some props for writing such an astounding piece of work. Graphic novels rarely get the respect they deserve and it’s nice to get the opportunity to show some towards a work I so highly regard. There are also some other pretty swell books up for awards including Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian, and Stephen King’s final installment in the Dark Tower saga, which are some of my favorite books in the whole world. Once again great fantasy that I feel has been overlooked by some who write King off as a one trick pony, when it’s so drastically the opposite.
Well I really should get back to work on this song and record the stinking bass part, although I might cop out and go play a game of PS2 baseball. It’s very close to the end of the regular season and my digital Red Sox are poised for a championship.
Peace y’all
Rold
Posted by harold at 03:52 PM | Comments (1)
September 05, 2005
Welcome back sexy people!
Wow, it’s been a while, sorry. The site was down for while due to the ineptitude of SBC. Then we switched everything over to this new sexy format, which I must say is quite sexy. It will become even sexier I assure you.
I’m sitting in my living room right now watching the Red Sox game. John Olerud just hit a 3 run homer in the bottom of the fifth. Woo hoo! Rodrigo Lopez was looking pretty fucking un-hittable until this inning.
Part of my problem with updating the site comes form my not knowing precisely how to update it. I’m slowly learning how to use this new software and I plan on making up for my incompetence ten times over.
Mannequins freak me out. I’m not sure what it is, but I find them entirely unsettling. Especially when they have no heads, it doesn’t really seem right. Yesterday however I found a new and even more frightening mannequin manifestation: Heads but no faces! They totally unnerved me. I feel like maybe they were once human but have been mystically transformed into faceless soulless pushers of fashion; incredibly disturbing. One more thing, why do mannequins have nipples? That just seems unnecessary. They don’t have to feed any small children, so the nipples only serve to arouse innocent passersby who may or may not have a penchant for the ever alluring stimulated nipple. The whole thing can be explained by my aforementioned theory of human/mannequin slavery, of course if they can rid the mannequin of its face then why can’t they do the same for the nipples? These are the kinds of things that keep me up at night.
Today I watched Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Hedwig is a super high quality movie. It’s based on a musical about a cross-dressing glam rocker from East Berlin; fucking brilliant. The music is pretty goddamned great, one of the songs “The Origin of Love??? is quite possibly the coolest song ever written. I’m actually contemplating covering it, it’s so freaking hip.
Fall has to be my favorite time of year in Connecticut, College Football season starts, MLB post-season is right around the corner, and Samuel Adams releases their Octoberfest brew. Octoberfest is probably my favorite of the Sam Adams line-up, plus right now it’s obscenely fresh and tasty. That’s the beauty of the seasonal brew. The only thing that fall has against it is that it’s immediately followed by winter, which I hate. This is why I should have a second home in California or perhaps the Caribbean. That would be swell.
Last night I finished watching Buffy season six, which leaves me with only one more season of vampire slaying goodness to enjoy. After that I may have to move from Sunnydale to Los Angeles and start watching Angel. I’m going to try and give myself a small break though before I start season seven, I kind of want to savor what time with Buffy I have left. She’s a real special lass that slayer. I like how in every episode she has a different hair style, I think that’s neat. She’s pretty alluring for a chick that died twice.
Ok enough gushing over the slayer, I’m going to watch the last inning of the Sox game.
Hooray! The Sox win it 5-1. David Wells put on a fucking clinic today. It was a beautiful thing to watch. 114 pitches and 82 strikes, pretty sweet.
Well I think I’ve spewed enough nonsense for one day, I’m going to go concentrate on making dinner. I’ll be back soon, we have much to discuss.
Peace,
Rold
Posted by harold at 09:42 PM | Comments (2)
July 25th
I wrote this entry on the 25th of July, I was unable to post it due to complications and my own laziness. I thought that since I wrote it I still might as well post it. Enjoy the retro blog, and welcome to a new era of sexiness.
Shoosh! It’s been a while and I apologize profusely. Life’s been a touch hectic ever since Harry Potter came out. For the first few days I was constantly working, and then after that I had to devote my time to reading it. I finished it yesterday and let me just say, Holy Crap! This book was intense. Some serious shit went down at Hogwarts this year; I’m still a little dumbstruck. I’m actually considering reading it again in the near future. A better idea would be re-reading the whole series. I’m going to hold off on that though, I need to finish the new John Irving and my boss just hooked me up with Buffy season Five. Plus I need to finish watching Trailer Park Boys which is this ultra funny Canadian television series. It’s supposed to be a fake documentary about two complete reprobates who are just getting out of prison. The show gets consistently funnier as it goes on, I’m thoroughly amused.
So I have a lot of entertainment in store for the next couple of weeks, it should be quite thrilling. With gas prices the way they are I think staying home and consuming media is an optimum choice for spending my free time. All I have to do now is sign up for Net Flicks and I never have to leave home again, except for that whole work thing, what a pain in the ass. If I could just figure out a way to make money without working I’d be all set. I’ll keep my brain working on that one; we’ll see how it pans out.
Tonight Dave and I are going to try and switch the website over to this groovy new software that is going to increase the sexiness of this site exponentially. The sexiness will astound you. It might even be done by the time I post this entry, in which case the sexiness has already astounded you and you’re reading this in an extreme state of astoundation. I don’t really think that’s a word, but I don’t particularly care.
I’m chilling out at the 99 Restaurant in Cromwell right now munching on some top notch popcorn. I’m really digging the corn, it’s quite flavorful. I don’t know how long they’re going to let me stay here eating popcorn and typing on my laptop but I’m willing to push the envelope on this one. Actually it looks like my computer might be making the decision in a little bit. The battery’s starting to get pretty low and the laptop doesn’t work so well without any power. I can’t really understand why but that’s what the manual says. I can’t get over how great this popcorn is, yum yum, I can’t stop eating it. I’m sure the owners of this establishment would be pleased that I’m sitting here touting the only thing they serve that’s free. What can I say though, I’m a corn appreciator.
Well my battery’s getting down to about 25 percent left and I don’t’ want to push it any farther than that, I may need what battery power I have left later. I don’t know what kind of emergency situation I would be in where I would require the services of my laptop, but you never know. I’ll continue this later when I can plug in.
Posted by harold at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)