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  • “True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories” Florence King

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    My start time at work keeps getting earlier and earlier.

    It doesn’t bother me much, the fluctuation gives me something to think about as I’m trying not to pass out from being there three hours earlier than I normally am.

    The anniversary of my father’s passing happened two days ago, so my work schedule really started making me think about his job when I was very, very young.

    From our home, he would travel by bus to Downtown Houston.  I can’t imagine how long that actually took for him to do, daily, but I’m getting an idea now as my commute gets radically longer or shorter depending on what time I have to be there.

    So, we’re a single car family, he’s saving cash by taking the bus (which would take FOREVER, even in the 70’s) and then walking home from the bus stop.

    One time, before I was old enough to “cross the street by myself”, I found myself running across the street to the school and looking down the road to see if he was walking toward the house.  I thought I was pretty sneaky, since I made sure to run fast.  Traffic was never really an issue with our neighborhood so I didn’t get hit or anything, but he did end up seeing me run across the street.  He wasn’t supremely mad (that I can remember) but as my brother and I were left to our own devices 90% of the time, I suspect his anger was misplaced.

    I can still remember him walking down the road toward the house. It’s etched in my memory.

    I wanted to find a nice clean shot of that street, but if you clicked the link above you’ll see that everybody and their brother was around that morning. Even the crossing guard is waving at the Google Car. Google Maps updated the ‘hood in March of 2010. I’m kind of bummed that I didn’t get a good pic to throw in, but seeing that the homeowners of my old childhood home cut down one of the big trees was pretty surprising.  And seeing the condition of the lawn/yard the HOA must be going nuts. They didn’t like us (for whatever reason) but at least our yard was in good condition.

    Miss you dad.


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  • “Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.” Alfred Hitchcock

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    It’s been pretty quiet on the blog-o-sphere front for a while now. (And what shape exactly IS a blog-o-sphere?)

    Recently, someone from the relatively recent past dredged up the fact that I used to wear glasses. Thick, Buddy Holly type glasses.  A lot of times I forget that I wore them for so long, having Lasik for a little less than ten years now.  So this person called and said, “Hey, you look like Buddy Holley right?”.

    It wasn’t surprising, since I’m sure that everyone from my childhood remembers me with glasses on. Think of the mental images in your head of some of your friends with glasses. Naturally, you imagine them with glasses on.  Even though this person had seen me since and KNEW I had Lasik, their mental image of me had those glasses on.

    Here’s what they remember (excuse the non-internet quality – this is a really old badge):

    In the span of about 2 or 3 years, it became: (Oooh. AND HIPPA Certified!)

    So, the first one is what he thinks of when he thought of me. Even though he’d seen the second “me” in the period of time that he knew me.

    Story time:

    When I was in elementary school, video games “came of age”. I suppose I was 10, and arcades were EVERYWHERE. Rooms of video games. With the sole purpose of  sucking quarters. Old school, no bill acceptors built into these puppies. Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace, Defender, Pac Man, Burger Time, Q-Bert, Joust, Galaga, Tron, etc, etc.

    So, one time I got invited to a church “lock-in”. I supposed I was getting invited to a lot of church events, but that’s pretty much how my friends rolled.  This specific lock-in was a lock-in in an ARCADE with FREE PLAY. You cannot imagine how pumped I was. I was completely addicted to video games, and this was like a dream.

    We attended some pre-lock-in activities, which included a spaghetti dinner. Now, until recently, spaghetti dinners and me were not friends. Looking back, I think it had a lot to do with how much I was NOT eating as a kid. Pretty much no breakfast, crappy carb lunch, then more or less no dinner. In my excitement of the lock-in, I ate even LESS that day, and so we hit that dinner. Well, loading up on more carbs with no protein all day long I quickly crashed into a massive sinus/migraine headache.

    We were about to leave to the arcade and I was dizzy, sweating profusely, and then I threw up all over the front steps of the church.

    Needless to say, they took me home and I missed out on what would have probably been the highlight of my childhood.

    Lastly, I love Zapps. That is all.


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  • “A tree never hits an automobile except in self defence.” Proverb

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Wow. My clutch burned out a few days ago. After getting it replaced it’s like driving a new car! Based on how it feels now, I guess there has been a problem with it since I bought it. Pretty crazy. A year or two ago I had a chance to drive a base model Civic and noticed the clutch was waaaay cleaner/easier to push. My last stick shift car was a 92 Camaro so I was pretty used to “rock crusher” clutches. My Civic is a sport model so I figured that there was a more intensive clutch to handle it.

    Guess I was wrong.

    Either way, it’s nice to not have to worry about it now. Was also lucky enough to have noticed it early enough that I wasn’t stranded anywhere.

    It’s interesting that the mechanic noted “disintigrated” on the diagnosis.


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  • “Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple. ” Willy Wonka

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    I have to say, as I mercilessly plug a burlesque show, that the marketing scheme cooked up by vivadallasburlesque is genius. Ingenious even.

    Their upcoming show is a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory theme – here’s the flyer:

    The thing that REALLY impressed me is that they’re running a “Golden Ticket” marketing campaign.  In an era where most people use Facebook as a their sole source of advertising, the addition of the “hunt” element was really a cool idea. I almost wanted to feign sickness and start driving around town looking for these tickets. I know where a few of them are, but I bet I can’t get there before someone else does. I’ll try this weekend maybe. Frequent the places the tickets are known to be….spend some cash at these places so they know that this was effective marketing….

    Seriously, how much more fun could this be?

     

    *EDIT*

    Here’s a pic from Facebook:


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  • “A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines.” Frank Lloyd Wright

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    My doctor is an awsome dude.  I’m a pretty typical guy in that I usually wait until the last possible minute to seek medical attention. In 2007 or 2008, after being told by a health examiner (for life insurance) that my blood pressure was high, I found my doctor.

    Yes, it was a random selection, chosen mostly by proximity to my house, but right before I went in, I made a decision. I made the decision that it was time to own up – for better or worse – that I had no idea what kind of shape I was in. I decided to be completely up front with my new doctor, that I was turning a new leaf and wanted to be open and transparent. I had nothing to lose, it was only my health right?

    When I first went in, the nurse said, “Oh, your Doctor loves to do blood tests.”  I thought, “GREAT!” Sure enough, even he said that he performed a lot of blood tests – just to be sure.

    Since then, I’ve continued to be open and honest with him, and my office visits are mercifully short because I try and get as much info out as possible, making it a one stop shop. He’s always willing to take the time to discuss anything I bring up.  He’s always in a great mood, and we laugh and joke while he goes about the business of making sure I’m a healthy dude.

    Over the last year or so, I’ve put the weight I’d lost back on. In talking to my doctor, I’m approximately thirty pounds overweight. Thirty pounds! That’s pretty amazing. I felt I was about fifteen above where I should be, but this was a reality check.

    Pretty crazy.

    In other news, I rode the Dallas DART for the first time, and figured out that my camera has a panoramic function. Check it:

     


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  • “It sounds all very sort of technical, but in fact it was very much a kind of bootlace affair. I mean, in the Abbey Road in those days was a fairly primitive place by today’s standards.” George Martin

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    The intro to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” came onto the radio on my way home.

    I never remember the song until the verse comes in.

    The intro makes chills come up my spine – for the sole reason that the first time I heard it I was in a music class in New Zealand. It was probably the first week of being in a new all-boys school, and I was in a music class taught by a hippy-dippy woman who wanted us to absorb the wonderment of the lyrics. She played it over and over and over again.

    I hadn’t been there long enough to pick up their accents, so she kept asking me questions which terrified me.

    Every time I hear that song it takes me back to the drafty classroom next to the terraces.

    This is a pretty nice picture. Good shot. Obviously you can see the terraces (which were lots of fun to get into fights on and then tumble down the sides of). However, you can’t see the tennis courts just below the music room, but you can see the creepy grounds-caretaker’s house on the left in white, then the creepy cemetery up at the top of the picture. The jogging class would typically end by running through the cemetery (which paradoxically we were strictly forbidden to enter) back onto school grounds.

    Good times.


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  • “Sometimes, I even freak myself out!” – Dimebag Darrell

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    I don’t know about you, but my new year has been pretty cool so far.

    So far I’ve gotten a lot done in the garage and my music room. Strapped on a guitar here and there and even fired up an old distortion pedal that I kind of like now.

    I’m trying to make an effort not to pay so much attention to my blog stats – although I can usually tell when some guitar forum posts a link to the guitar columns.

    Unusually enough, I get quite a bit of traffic for searches on Edgar Oliver. You know, the “straaightjacket” guy from that show Oddities (and numerous other projects as his IMDB attests)

    In honor of Edgar, I present:

     

    “Is that a straaaaight jacket?” – Edgar Oliver


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  • “Money only pays the bills. Rockabilly saves souls” Darrel Higham

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    It’s a barren radio wasteland. Trying to keep my ipod charged and in the car was a pain, and it didn’t help that I read a book about sampling rates and decided that my imusic was too muddy. I should have known better.

    Commuting to work without my personal music stash is just too torturous.

    My annual rebellion from TV and internet is also hitting me hard and I’m eyeing my music room and garage for what I’m willing to throw away to make it more condusive to practicing.

    Oddly enough I played one of my oldest guitars this morning. It wasn’t as stiff playing as I remember it, but it was close. It’s unfortunate because it’s my only single coil equipped guitar. I have more or less two standing invitations to buy if I ever wanted to sell it. I’m going to have to take it to a tech to suss it out, but right now I think the neck angle is out just enough to be lengthening the scale slightly – making it more of an effort to play. Kind of a bummer.

    2011 is almost done. Raising a glass to the year that brought me some steady employment that hasn’t (yet) driven me crazy. Toasting the upcoming year, with good wishes to all.


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  • “You’re suffering from hardening of the orthodoxies.” ~ Camden Benares

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare 4 Comments

    Today a friend of mine inadvertently offended some white people. Well, white person anyway.  In a very small, limited way I can understand where they were coming from. (This with a guess that they’ve never seen “Stuff white people like” either). She posted the below picture on Facebook and someone took offense.  To me the picture seems as any other ha-ha internet picture does. Good for a chuckle…..then it’s time to move on.

    Despite the fact that I think only a small percentage of anything you find on the internet should be taken seriously, I forget sometimes how sensitive people are to the dumbest stuff.  A good example would be this really cool patch that I got for one of my jackets:

    What’s not to love, right? As someone who loves religion as pop-art and lowbrow culture (neither of which I take too seriously), I was quickly reminded that I live in the South. The South where some people are fanatically religious and could cause me verifiable harm. Some people take that religion stuff really REALLY seriously.

    I’ve had way less issues with people than I used to. I used to wear my priest collar out in public just for the hell of it, and I think people were generally too shocked to beat the crap out of me.

    I think sometimes shock value is good. Sometimes it initiates change. Obviously my friend won’t be posting any Nutella pics referencing white people, but that change has debatable value.  Although, since I’m white could I have posted the picture without recrimination? What’s the impact there? Can I go hang out at IKEA and lure white people into a van with Nutella? (Did I just define IKEA as whitebread? Of course not, everyone shops there.)

    One of man’s most admirable traits is the ability to laugh at one’s self.

    Too bad people forget to do that often.


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  • “A true initiation never ends.” Robert Anton Wilson

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare 2 Comments

    In pre-internet times, reading books was my preferred way to gather subversive and entertainingly educational information. After my friend Brian turned me onto Robert Anton Wilson, I first went through all the referenced authors in the Illuminatus series. After that, Loompanics Unlimited was a great source for dark materials. All of my John Waters books as well as my Anarchist Cookbook came from there.

    One of the books that I got from there was the Principia Discordia which I took quite a shine to. I’m an athiest, but if pressed, I will admit to being athiest-discordian. However, one of the problems that I always had even with “practicing” Discordians was their over-reliance on the source material. To me, the tome was intended as a starting point. Unfortunately there are not a tremendous amount of people inventive enough to elaborate on the existing work. Indeed, I started my own cabal briefly, the Theodore Geisel cabal, and sent out random musings via (snail) mail and initiated people that declared they were interested. I tried to expand upon the mythology and think I did okay….all things considered.  I saw something that reminded me of all this so I need to dig out some of that stuff again.

    Recommended reading: Zen without Zen Masters by Camden Benares.


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