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  • “He who wants a rose must respect the thorn.” Persian Proverb

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare 2 Comments

    “Cha-na-na-na-na-na-na-knees! Knees! In the jungle….”, she sings.
    “Wait”, she says. “How come I know this song?”
    “Probably because you’ve heard it one million times playing Guitar Hero”.

    Guilty as charged. Guns ‘n Roses “Appetite for Destruction”  has been rotating in and out of my CD player in my car.  It started at the last “Heavy Metal Burlesque” show that I went to – the sponsor had hired a GnR tribute band to play. The dude that was playing “Slash” didn’t impress me much, but that was because his Les Paul kept pulling out of tune. But it reminded me of all the songs off Appetite that I loved. I sang along to a bunch of them and couldn’t believe that I remembered the words. Stopped at Forever Young and scored a used copy.
    Initially, I didn’t warm to GnR until right around the end of high school – around 1991.  In passing, we would see the video for “Paradise City” when waiting for the Metallica video “One”  (somewhere around 1989). GnR initally struck me as kind of a hair metal band so at the time I was pretty non-plussed. Looking back, we also didn’t think much about the instability of the guys in GnR. Just when you thought they SHOULD be releasing an album or something – they just didn’t. There was a LONG stretch of them releasing nothing until that double album set came out (which I only bought one of – and I can’t remember why). At that time, I wanted my music to be harder/heavier

     on AM radio! Rawk!
    It wasn’t until a few of us drove down to Galveston with Ty’s crappy boom-box sporting a (cassette) copy of Appetite did I really start to dig the album. I have to say, it still really holds together and stands the test of time (for me anyway). Whenever I listen to it, the reckless-energy vibe still is there for me.
    As a guitar player I’ve never been a huge Slash fan, although his playing on Appetite (to me) is a great exercise in judicious Wah usage. When I got bored at lunch, I popped over and picked up his autobiography. There were only two things that really surprised me. One is that he got a pacemaker at 34. (After continually having heart attacks onstage!). The other that shocked me was that Slash drove a Honda CRX. Seriously? A CRX? I was in an accident (as passenger) in one of those. I can’t imagine a less masculine car for a guitar-guy like Slash to be driving. I mean sure, it was black-on-black, but c’mon…..a CRX?  Heroin usage? Blah, blah, whatever. Expected. That CRX thing blew me away though.
    Listening to Appetite now, I have to agree with Slash’s assesment that Stephen Adler was essential to that album’s success. No matter how much you dog him for whatever else he’s done, his drumming is really an essential part of that album.
    I haven’t gotten into GnR live stuff yet – their Youtube stuff is not really doing it for me.  If you see me walking around with a top hat on, you’ll know I’ve lost it.


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  • “Unfortunately, the people of Louisiana are not racists.” Dan Quayle

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare 2 Comments

    Robert says, “Let me ask you something…..what are you white guys so angry about? Always screamin’……”

    I admit, I was at somewhat of a loss to an answer. Here was a black man asking me why I listened to the blistering guitars of Metallica and Anthrax and asking ME personally what it was that I was so angry about. Sure, it’s not like I had the absolute best childhood or anything, but was I ever oppressed or discriminated against? Mmm. I think solidly no. I wouldn’t count that time that my hair was so long that someone thought I was a young girl.

    My musical tastes didn’t start out that way.  In the 70’s and 80’s I was never steered toward the fuzz-heavy guitar that dominated that time.  Several friends had Kiss posters hung on their walls, but I wasn’t into that whole 70’s rock scene. Musically speaking, my mother plays piano and I’ve always had an ear for music. When I was six or seven, I was given the opportunity to sing the Muppet song “Rainbow Connection” in front of the entire Parker Choir. To this day, I can still recite the lyrics from memory. No idea why it was decided that was a good idea. I tripped over a timing/lyric that I had problems with as I expected – but like always I don’t remember actually practicing for it that much. Pretty much two run-throughs and I went ahead and did it. After that I play Coronet and French Horn in the elementary school band (briefly) until I had one of my patented short-temper-tantrum-freak-outs. Even then, once I got a little older, I was listening to the top hits of the day – which tended to be pretty mellow stuff. John Lennon, Air Supply, Kenny Rogers. Here’s how not cool I was – I saw a TV ad for AC/DC’s tour (Coming to the Summit!) and I was actually scared. Scared of a commercial about heavy metal music! Hanging around my mom definitely skewed my listening some extremely mild stuff.

    My mother is a pretty reserved person. Her idea of great music tended to be “Kokomo” by the Beach Boys. Further back, my interest in music tended to aim toward soundtracks. You have no idea how embarrased I am to look back and see my younger self walk through the door of a record store and head straight for the Soundtrack section? Seriously?
    Even after I discovered the guitar in New Zealand, I distinctly remember meeting my guitar teacher for the first time in the States.

    Him: So, you want to learn to play guitar? What music do you like?
    Me: Ummm….Huey Lewis and the News?
    Him: Uh, there’s not a lot of guitar in that.

    Coming back to the reality of a US based school (sophomore in High School) I got exposed to a lot more (heavier) guitar-based music – 1988 or so. I dove headfirst into metal – or at least some of the big names in metal anyway. Since then I’ve come to appreciate some of the best heavy guitar riffs in music.

     

    However, I still can’t answer his question.

     


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  • “Don’t be so humble, you’re not that great.” Golda Meir

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    I don’t think I mentioned it, but we visited a Munster’s Mansion replica the weekend before Halloween.

    This was seriously one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time. The story is that the family built this house by watching all the episodes and creating a blueprint from that. Each room was as much a replica as the show as possible included props and everything. The stairs were even lifted with a Spot replica – although it didn’t breath fire. It even included secret passages – and the kicker is that they live it like that FULL TIME. Terrifically cool!  The only down side was that we waited for almost four hours – but it was totally worth it.

    You can’t see the front gate in this pic very well, but it had the arch and the address 1313 on it. Because we were there until about 2 in the morning, we did get to talk to the owner for a minute and tell him that we really dug his creation.  I have a similar “dream” where I rebuild the Psycho house replica – but not with the room-to-room detail of the original. A modern interior with the original spooky exterior.  I actually found a set of blueprints for it a long time ago:

    The owner of the Munster house told us that the original Psycho house staircase became the Munsters staircase. Pretty cool.


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  • “In the audio and video archives, there are 7,000 taped concerts alone. I’m a rock fan who wanted to get into the music business and own intellectual property.” Bill Sagan

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the following book to any musicians who happen to read my blog:

    Honestly, it’s not the easiest read – it’s dense. It’s almost textbook-like but it is very well worth sticking with.  I’ve found myself saying (out loud) “Wow” several times while reading.


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  • “The man that sets out to carry a cat by it’s tail learns something that will always be useful and which will never grow dim or doubtful.” Mark Twain

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    I’m surprised what a “good” dog walk can do to my disposition. Generally, I’m hustling to keep my dog in line and it’s kind of exhausting. The rest of my day tends to be a reflection of how much he challenged me during the walk.

    He’s still very active and figuring out his place in the house.  He did manage to kill a stray cat two days ago. It’s not something I’m supremely proud of, but stuff like that happens. I walked outside to chase any cats out before I let him out, went back in and let him out. Apparently there was still one down the side of my house. Jax is lightning fast when he wants to be and I suspect that one second thought delay that the cat had when Jax was barrelling down on him screwed him. “Iiiiii shoooollld juuuummm – IRK”. So I walked back out and he already had the cat in his jaws. Needless to say, it didn’t end well.

    So, to my first point, I think Jax got bit or scratched by the cat on his leg, so he was limping quite a bit initially. He was better yesterday (still gimpy, but not as much) and seems to have shaken it off today. But, it has made the walks MUCH easier. But now that he’s back to normal, he’s a little more skittish. We’ve got a trainer coming in tomorrow to help out.

    I’ve never really decorated, so this was an exercise in how much cool stuff we could put in the yard. We ran out of candy in the third quarter, so I had to get more. I think our house was pre-scouted since all the cars would just pull right up, which is slightly irritating. We didn’t do that when I was a kid. It was like an endurance challenge. It’s the old, “Wherever I stop, I’m halfway home so I’ll have to walk back……do I go further?”


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  • “Love is like racing across the frozen tundra on a snowmobile which flips over, trapping you underneath. At night, the ice-weasels come.” Matt Groening

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Geez it got cold! I wouldn’t have noticed so much if I didn’t have to walk my small furry son each

    morning before I go to work. Luckily, I had the sense to pick up a flight hat the other day. It came

    extremely handy on this morning’s 43 degree walk. Warm ears = golden. Not sure where I saw a hypothermia

    instructional film (probably elementary school) where your head is one of the most important things to

    cover to keep warm. That image of a hat is stuck in my head. I’ve never been a “hat” guy really, ballcaps

    were the extent of my headgear – not that they are great, but I did get a very early COOP ballcap from

    Nicholas James Group back in the 90’s. It’s pretty torn up now.

    It was before COOP really blew up. But knowing how brutal the winters

    are becoming, I had to find something that would cover my head/ears sufficiently. Ballcaps do not cut it.

    I also picked up a nice army trenchcoat from the army surplus store. I’m somewhat addicted to jackets so I cut some loose this morning at the donation place. The trenchcoat is very geek-chic (not in a good way), but there’s a point for me where function is more important than form – dog walks require a coat that would keep the majority of me warm and dry for

    when it really starts getting nasty.

    I could spend hours in the surplus stores. My first major surplus store adventure was at Col Bubbies in Galveston. I was probably eight or nine years old. For some reason, we purchased a really old air force shirt for me. It had a patch or two on it and I loved it. It was even worn as one of my Halloween costumes (with a skull mask).

    As much of my lifetime wardrobe has been, it was oversized and pretty ratty. One of my favorite teachers ever, Mrs Craig, at Parker Elementary (Beyonce went there!), hated that shirt. And I mean HATED. She cut me a deal one day where

    she said she would allow something (that I don’t recall) if I promised to NEVER EVER EVER wear that shirt again.

    I agreed to it and now I’m not sure what ever happened to that shirt….

    Either way, it’s now been a month (yesterday) that we picked Jax up from the Dallas Animal shelter. Things are getting steadily more stable every day. He’s still

    pretty excited by cats (or anything moving) but he’s getting better at not reacting to them all. He went after one of the cats in the first week, the cat bit the hell

    out of my hands (requiring multiple doctor visits with much concern and antibiotics). There was also an incident with a stray dog that got too close and Jax grabbed his ear. While

    separating them the tiny dog bit my hand a bunch. Speaking of which, the stray dogs in my neighborhood are getting on my nerves. One in particular is about two houses

    away and is getting out ALL the TIME. It’s a pit bull mix (of some sort). There was one entertaining episode where that dog rooted out a rat from my front yard

    and chased it across the street.  All in all, Jax is calming down more but the strays in the neighborhood make his walks a little disconcerting.

    My workload fluctuates which gives me a chance to persue some light reading.As such, I’ve been able to pick up a few things that i didn’t know before.

    Most primarily are the uses of DI boxes and expander/compressors. I went “off list” and picked up Guerilla Home Recording : How to Get Great Sound from Any Studio (No Matter How Weird Or Cheap Your Gear Is) which is cluing me into some basics – like “record each track with all effects first – don’t slap them on after the fact because it may/will jack up your mix if you add it later”. Seems obvious really but just one of those things I never thought enough about. As there is plenty of references to the Beatles in all the books I’m reading (four at a time??) it’s all about mixing as you go rather than recording it straight and putting effects on after.

    Unfortunately, one of the hard drives that died recently had all my ProTools song edits on it. So the finals of whatever I’ve got are final.

    No editing available now.


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  • A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. – John Barrymore

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Having a puppy made me realize how much extra time that I had that I was squandering. Of course, the irony is that now that I have the dog I don’t have any spare time to squander.

    I’m starting to get that feeling….the one that says, “You need to take some time to enjoy doing some things that you enjoy doing – playing guitar and recording songs”.  I’ve been reading some recording books at work so that I can try and capture that mindset again. While walking the dog I’ve had some song ideas float through my head. Granted, now that I have a smartphone I could make verbal notes to myself but since it’s a smartphone, I haven’t figured it out yet.

    My dad’s birthday was October 4th.

    I didn’t do anything in his memory although I had a fleeting thought of having a drink in his honor.  But I’m pretty sure I was out of scotch (which wasn’t his drink) and had no orange juice (for a screwdriver that he once admitted that he drank in college).   It’s very hard for me to drink his beer (Budweiser = rusty nails).

    Honestly, I think I was too tired to do it.

    Walking a more-than-energetic dog twice a day is pretty draining. And time consuming.  He’s still a puppy but luckily he’s learning fast. And a fast learner.

    Here he is in his upcoming costume, “Bat with 100-mph-tail”.

     


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  • “A mutt is couture — it’s the only one like it in the world, made especially for you.” Julia Szabo

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    We adopted!  After our many visits to the Dallas Animal Shelter, we connected with a young lad. It took a few visits for us to decide if he was going to fit into our household.

    His name is Jax.He was named after a beer that was produced in New Orleans years ago.

    The first night, I had my first (pack leader) bonding walk with him. Halfway through he spied a cat and went for it. I was holding him back and either I nudged the spring clip off his prong collar, or it just slipped – and off he went!  The cat went up a tree on the median between the streets. He barked and jumped – and I tried to figure out how not to spook him into running out into late night traffic.  Luckily, I think the trips to the shelter to see him and then driving him from the shelter to the house helped cement the “this is my pack leader/owner” vibe. So after he’d hopped around a little, I crouched down and called him and he hightailed it to me. I pinned him down and put the collar back on him (which I artfully reassembled while taking stock of the situation). It was bad enough to say, “The first walk was good, except for the time he got away from me” but it was better than, “He got away from me and got hit by a car.”

    The cats are still taking stock of the situation and are appropriately freaked out.

    While I’m definitely looking forward to the benefits of having a dog, my body is telling me that it’s not used to the exercise that I’ve already given him. That trip to the podiadrist may come sooner than later.

    Wish me luck…..


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  • Impress your friends, your frenemies, your enemies and your neighbors! ~ Me

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Like the new header?  I’m pretty proud of it myself.

    One of the things that I wondered for a long time was, “How can I get one of my favorite lowbrow artists to draw something for me?”  As it turns out, it’s as easy as sending an e-mail.  Since my blog gets an occasional flurry of hits thanks to various sources,  it was time to give it a little more life (or death….)

    Having been a fan of Vince Ray‘s artwork for a while, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to see if he would be interested in working with me on a design.  Several e-mails later, we nailed down the specifics and he got to work.  As with all artists that I’ve worked with, Vince was extremely cool, open to suggestions and executed my ideas perfectly while adding his own signature touches.

    Getting a custom art piece is really cool regardless of the reason – you don’t have to have a blog. I have to say it’s a lot like getting a custom tattoo, although you don’t *usually* have to take any clothes off for anyone to see it.

    I can’t recommend Vince highly enough. He’s open to ideas and is fair on price for his work (although I will hunt you down if I hear you tried to lowball him).  Even if you’re not into the entire lowbrow angle, the guy is a talented artist and can come up with a design that’s going to make you happy. As a matter of fact, he and I are currently in discussion about another piece that’s more sci-fi related.

    Anyway, enough with the sales pitch – I got his permission to post his FB page in case any of you were interested in commissioning him for a custom piece yourself. Vince is a cool cat to work with.

    Vince Ray’s Facebook Page

    The full image –


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  • “A puppy plays with every pup he meets, but an old dog has few associates” Josh Billings

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    One of the last CERT classes had a bomb sniffing dog, which was pretty sweet. When we walked in, we were “investigated” by him until he was satisfied we weren’t holding.  Unfortunately, it did have the effect of renewing my interest in owning a dog.I decided to research owning a dog again. For a long while I’ve put it off because my backyard fence is rotting. After going to my friend’s house, I realized that his dogs actually didn’t spend that much time in the yard. Also realizing that my ex-brother-in-law has the sweetest doberman (also an inside dog), there was a glimmer of hope. Throughout the years, our family really only managed to mainly have cats. My father always claims he was a “dog person” more than a “cat person” which is true.  Throughout the years, I’ve aimlessly consdered having another dog, but until I had my house really didn’t seriously consider that option. In my childhood, we did have two dogs, but none after that.

    The first was “Scotty”, a Scottish Terrier.

     I didn’t find out until right before my father passed that his side of the family (East Coasters) were somehow involved in breeding them – which is why I think we ended up with him. All I remember of him is that he was old and had skin, eye, and hearing problems. He also had that old, slow, puttering dog walk. Scotty never bit me (that I recall) but since my age was about six, it’s hard to recall everything. In the end, due to his age, we had to put him down. After my father passed, I considered getting a Scottish Terrier, but their thick fur and sensitivity to heat are not well suited to Texas.

    The second was “Tracker”, a black lab. I’m pretty sure I considered her “my” dog even though she really was the family dog. She was home the night the house got robbed. My mother (to this day) will swear that I caused the dog to run away.  Her supposition was that because I walked the dog one day before school, that I made Tracker too excited the following days – and didn’t walk her again, and then she got over-anxious and ran away.  After reading a bunch of dog psychology books (which inherently sounds goofy), I have a much better understanding of where we went wrong with Tracker. Of course, this being something like 1980, we didn’t have the unlimited resources of the internet to help us train our animals.


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