starkraving

I have a question for those of you who have embarked on, or are currently engaged in, artistic projects. This can include painting, writing, crafting, creative research, etc. Do you ever find that your strongest inspiration comes from things that upset you? Or, are you propelled more by beauty and love and people being good to each other?

I know that most of you likely draw inspiration from both good and bad sources. So, for sake of bypassing this obvious truth and getting to the bottom of this, I clarify... if you had to pare it down: do your most powerful and truthful creations spring from things that make you angry or upset?

I ask because I am always more inspired to throw something down when something has upset me. Is this human nature, or am I just an angry person?

My good friend mopmonster made a video for his single 'Waiting' off his new album "Now You're Gone." It's a neat, high concept video with lots of special effects and a great performance by mopmonster himself. I'm really proud of him for doing this; hats off to all those involved with the conception and production.

Poll #1395806 Where Would You Rather Succeed?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

If you had to choose between the two, in which area of your life would you rather achieve great success?

Close to midnight, Michelle and I wander down a dark and sandy slope toward the water. The red and yellow lights from downtown retreat behind us, buried gently by Cypress branches. The air all around is still and black. I glance out across the strip of sand - at the way the moonlight gently illuminates the landscape. The light sneaks on us - invisible at first, then taking shape. In this dim nowhere-land, caught between worlds, I feel we capture a great great cosmic verisimilitude all around us, a light and shadow that exists only in dreams suddenly springing forth on us like the waves.

The significance of happening upon the world in that state return me to dreams I have as a boy. I found a trellis covered in vines and large, waxy thick leaves, almost undone by a pervasive darkness. I found a disused workers' shed, surrounded by trees. I grabbed old relics, things caught in underbrush, strangled by ivy. I peered through dark, thick windows hiding forgotten treasures. I drove inky stretches of road cutting through woods, cooling foliage after a long hot day somewhere far away.

It eats at me while we stand on the sand that my last moment of pure reflection in the middle of night, somewhere untouched by mediocrity, has been so long ago that I nothing comes at first. It grows into view steadily, like a paper towel soaking up oil, until at last I see stairs, and a garden path. We saw the world like artists. Everything was a painting. The cacophonous croaking of frogs outside an old gas station on route 85. A dark monolith against the setting sun, surrounded by swamp grass. A faded hotel corridor. Two cottages, side by side, one facing east, the other facing west. The first cottage is swarming with insects. The second is throwing music from its front windows like useless antique furniture. My face is changing before her eyes, and it won't stop. She is screaming for it to stop.

I gather myself, grab her hand, and lead us from the dark froth up to a grouping of trees at the top of a sand mound. She is still taking pictures, throwing her limbs around to get the right shot, blissfully unaware of me, distracted. My artist baby. There is never enough time as our lives dare us to look away from each other for just so long. When we remember to turn back, we may not recognize who we see. I take her head in my hands and kiss her until we both remember.

Why do some people continue to ask women they've just met 'when they're due' or 'if they're expecting' without any confirmation? This is one of the rudest, most presumptuously offensive things you can ask a woman who isn't expecting, and people continue still do it.

Unless you have confirmation that the person is expecting, or a baby is in the process of leaving the birth canal, you don't ever, ever ask a woman that question.

And yet, women do it to each other still. Is this some kind of passive aggressive cruelty? Not every woman is built the same and if you see someone that YOU think looks pregnant, you better 1) check yourself and 2) just assume they're not pregnant. Keep your mouth shut.

People are so fucking stupid.

For you BSG geeks out there... Adama and Roslin made an appearance at the United Nations the other day. This is not from the show; it actually happened. Watch for the moment (around the 2:30 mark), when Olmos leads the participants in a rousing 'So Say We All.' Surreal.

From birth, two voices went after her relentlessly. They scrambled up into her skull as she made her escape out into the world. The first voice, a woman's: a shrill, frantic scold causing her relentless doubt about her worth. The second voice, a man's: instructional, full of class-conscious fear and unmovable, unadaptive desperation about status and material wealth.

The first voice gave her no room to contest her own value. The second voice gave her no room to decide what should matter. She was locked between them; between the abysmal abyss of self doubt and self loathing and the dizzying, dangerous heights of expectation and entitlement. The tethers on either side left her with no choice but to follow a path that was promised would lead to great success and a final, exhaustive leap out into the bright world of self worth. If she could only last long enough to push through and leave those voices behind.

Unfortunately, both voices persisted long after the promises of great career recognition and personal fulfillment had passed. She was broken, endlessly questioning her likability, her charm, her intelligence, her self control and her judgment. The first shrill voice instilled her with manic, resentful, vein bursting self hatred, and she tried to push it down and it always came rising back up like a geyser and spilled out on those closest to her.

The second voice lectured that she hadn't taken enough risks. She tried to argue feebly with this inner voice, telling it she hadn't avoided risks, she'd only taken the wrong risks at the wrong time. She didn't use good judgment, she told him, and it was my fault for making you God and making decisions more for you than for me. But the other voice had acquired too much power in her skull after going unquestioned for so long. He retorted with a list of unconquerable revisions of history, simultaneously taking her apart and making her the master of her own domain, discounting his influence on her completely.

From the frustrating limbo between these two voices comes a plaintive sound, unfamiliar, faint. Caught between anger, doubt and frustration, it sees its own predicament and hasn't found the words to expel the voices.

She takes her place on the bow over toiling waves. She braces herself and leans forward over the rail, hoping for the first time ever to chart her own course. The first voice spits and curses her for even having to ride the storm at all, and the second voice second guesses every course correction. Their power over her cripples but does not stop her voice, the third voice, from making itself clear, from riding straight through despite a lifetime of influence.

I need your help!

I am participating in Northern California's Stroll for Epilepsy on Saturday, May 17th in Vallejo, and am asking for your help in reaching our goal! All proceeds from this event benefit the Epilepsy Foundation of Northern California, serving more than 140,000 people with seizure disorders. This is a very worthy cause!

Please donate as little or as much as you'd like. My goal for this walk is eventually a grand total of $100! If you cannot donate, "Team Team Bacon" just asks for your moral support.

For more information visit www.epilepsynorcal.org or call 925-224-7760.

Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support the Epilepsy Foundation of Northern California!

In the event you aren't having any luck reaching my Goals Page, copy and paste the following link into your browser to check out our team or to make a donation:
http://efnc.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=302825&u=302825-249797043&e=2289357394

I really appreciate all the support!

Late in season 2 of LOST, some of the survivors glimpsed a giant four toed foot, presumably belonging to an ancient island statue, off the shoreline of the island. This mystery - one of the more bizarre to hit the show, if you can believe it - was never fully addressed until last week, when the time-hopping castaways briefly found themselves in an ancient time period and viewed the intact statue at a distance, from the rear, towering over the trees. It was from this glimpse that I was able to extrapolate its identity. I could hardly believe my eyes. The ramifications are immense...

( MAJOR spoilers within.... )

Crazy, eh? I'm guessing this means space travel isn't out of the picture before the end of the series.

When it comes to iTunes and my iPod, I'm weird.

Let me explain. My laptop's tiny six year old hard drive doesn't have nearly enough room to hold even a small fraction of what my iPod carries. I have already filled over 32 Gbs on the iPod and have 80 Gbs of music left to drop into the little bugger. Believe me, I need every byte.

Therefore, there is no way my laptop's media content can be synchronous with what's on the iPod. No way to autosync between the two. Unfortunately, autosyncing is required in order to get the Genius playlist feature that is included with my new model iPod Classic to work.

I have to piecemeal little bits of music to an iPod, bit by bit, deleting as the hard drive reaches capacity, 'Genius' doesn't work, ever.

I have thought about a few possible solutions.

1. Load about a Gb (or 2 at most) into iTunes, activate a genius playlist and then somehow 'import it' into the iPod, where it takes on a life of its own. Like a jumpstart.

2. Get a portable storage device (like a 250 Gb portable hard drive), run it through iTunes, synchronizing its contents with my iPod. I don't even know if iTunes can read content directly from a portable storage medium. What makes this tough is, my laptop only supports USB 1.0 and firewire, and our USB 2.0 adapter stopped working a long while ago.

Why on earth would Viacom pull a Sisters of Mercy video from youtube, even though it has never, ever been made commercially available to anyone outside of promos and old VH1 retro programs from the early nineties? I would pony up for an official video collection by this artist, but that will never happen. So why deprive fans of the videos if they have no other way of obtaining (or watching) them? WTF??

Last month John Hodgman (of Daily Show/BSG/I'm a PC fame) twittered this:

"Did I ever tell you people how much I hate the word "meh"? Nothing announces 'I have missed the point' more than that word. It is the essence of blinkered Internet malcontentism. And a rejection of joy."

You know something, I kind of agree.

It's important to note that I've altered this meme from 'list the most life altering, earth shattering albums in your life' to something a little less, well dramatic. I simply don't know of 15 albums that have 'shattered my world' so I've lessened the fanfare to make this simply an 'influential album meme.' These aren't all albums I would necessarily put on my top 100, but they each evoke memories that have shaped my life and my world in very specific ways. So no, this is not a 'my favorite albums' list by any stretch.

I cheated a little bit. Some of my numbered items contain more than one album by each artist.

1. Carole King - Tapestry

I don't harbor huge love for this album, but it always makes me think of childhood. My parents owned a handful of vinyl and never spent too much time listening to music, but my mother put this on all the time. I remember the album being really sad and contemplative and it always seemed to go on during those wet, dreary days of winter. I had this thing about avoiding depressing music when I was younger and to us, this was the depressing 'barefoot cat lady' album.

2. Michael Jackson - "Thriller"

There was something awfully creepy about the fold out centerfold which featured Michael Jackson lounging seductively with some kind of large cat, but even as a kid it was hard to miss the infectious, impossibly cheesy songs on this album. I was actually a huge Michael Jackson fan as a kid, because Michael Jackson had implanted a siren call in the grooves of the record that told kids to all disobey their parents and run away to the Neverland Ranch. I think I was halfway there when an armed patrol stopped me and delivered me back into the arms of my worried parents. Just kidding.

3. Sisters of Mercy - "Floodland"

One of the cheesiest synth metal albums ever released, Floodland wears its bombastic, reverberating Euro-trash heart on its sleeve. I absolutely loved it when I was edging my foot in the door of goth culture for the first time and remember being mildly disappointed when I realized (after hearing Vision Thing) that the Sisters would never dabble in goth opera again.

4. Toad the Wet Sprocket - "Bread and Circus"

Maybe it's because of the Friends soundtrack, or because of their Hootie and the Blowfish association, but Toad gets maligned by music snobs because let's face it, they're an easy target. The production on their later albums was too thought-out, overly slick and awkwardly arranged, but their first few albums (from the '80s) were alt-country pop albums with wry, morbid lyrics and jangly, deep sea production. Their first, 'Bread and Circus' makes me think of being young and on the borders of profound discoveries, of cloudy afternoons next to a rising ocean tide.

5. Chameleons - "Script of the Bridge"

Nowhere has post-punk new romanticism been done better than on this, their first LP. Every single song on Script is a classic: Evocative, transporting, nihilistic, sardonic, and deeply romantic. This album did actually 'shatter my world' and cemented for me the sort of music I'd likely have played if I'd ever pursued music more ardently.

6. Tom Waits - "Closing Time," "Small Change," "Swordfishtrombones," "Rain Dogs"

I was tempted to list every album in Tom Waits' catalog up to Big Time, but these four got more listen time than the others. They're the ones I go back to the most. I used to stay up all night in coffee shops, writing, thinking, obsessing, about that time that Waits evokes (to paraphrase Dinah Shore) 'when the clocks of the world are all stopped at 2 am.' These albums are all tangled up in intense memory, in teenage dreams, in extreme, uncomplicated thoughts.

7. Tears for Fears - "The Seeds of Love," "Elemental"

Like Floodland, 'Seeds' is another unabashedly bombastic rock opera, only progressive jazz and R&B color the synth instead of driving drums and guitar. I shouldn't like this album so much but I remember hearing the title track when I was fifteen during a pretty crazy moment in my life, and the song adhered to me. When I was 20 or 21 I gave it another listen and realized the album was really kind of haunting and beautiful. When I met my wife we discovered that she felt the same way about this album and that was all she wrote.

I can't even explain why 'Elemental' affects me the way it does 'aside from one song, my dear wife doesn't like it,' other than I had some legitimately traumatic drama/pain going on in my life around the time this was released and the songs on the album kept me from spiraling out of control. Every time I listen to 'Elemental' I get sad and nostalgic and remember what it was like to be in college with a chance to complete my education before I was an old man. Damnit.

8. Nine Inch Nails - "Pretty Hate Machine"

Another album that reminds of me being a teenager on the cusp of life beyond high school. And to think, at the time, this relatively tame exercise in shoegaze electronica seemed, to be, so fucking hardcore and EXTREME. It's still a really great album though, so many great sounds and effects all over its masturbatory landscape.

9. Cocteau Twins - "Treasure," "Victorialand"

Before these two albums begin, before they weave and wind their mystical spells, they take me out dancing, get me shitfaced, drape me in warm blankets and a pack of cigarettes before dawn, and that's the place I go when they start. I am always swimming in a daze in the middle of the night as these odd, gorgeous paeans to beauty commence. By the end I am back to zero.

10. Siouxsie & the Banshees - "Twice Upon a Time"

This greatest hits collection totally nails that swirling, dark-anchored goth opera aesthetic that drew me into the scene in the first place. The disc I own now is the same one I used to make myself mix tapes back when. This reminds me of rainy nights and clubs that could never exist today, because their DJs weren't appeasing the bottom line by playing "What I Like About You" or worse.

11. Depeche Mode - "Violator"

This album is so straight ahead, so solid, it functions primarily as a basic synth pop album but its great production value is hard to ignore. It was one of the first CDs I ever bought, and as such, it got a lot of play during a very formative time in my life. I hate to say it but Violator was probably one of my first introductions to electronic music, which, now that I'm a lot more versed in the genre, is kind of sad.

12. Peter Murphy - "Deep"

Reminds me of very specific places and people and moods. The ballads off this album evoke contemplative moods. 80's blond Peter Murphy could kick old

13. The Sundays - "Reading, Writing & Arithmetic/Blind"

I listened to these both as one album (I bought them both at the same time and they're extremely similar. I hear this and I am immediately taken back to the summer/fall I after I turned 18, which I consider (aside from time spent with my wife of course) some of the best months of my life. I am reminded of driving to the beach in Santa Cruz with my friend AJ, so long ago that none of today's tweens had even been born yet.

14. Yoko Kanno - "Macross Plus"

This one immediately connected me with Michelle when we were apart. After we fell out of touch for the first time, the album randomly fell into place as one that kept me connected to her She had placed a few songs on mix tapes for me and the rest followed. It's just a philharmonic symphony music and a few cool techno tracks from Kanno, and it still makes me think of her. It's funny, because she doesn't connect with the album the way I do.

15. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - "I See A Darkness"

This isn't just one of the greatest albums ever released, it's an album that transports me to a new place with each listen. To appreciate its majesty you really have to get the lights down and tune everything else out (like a lot of good albums in fact). Every song on this album generously re-associates me with places and people I have been disconnected from for a perilously long time.

Two years ago we wandered into Hydra, a soap boutique in lower Pacific Heights. A clear competitor to Lush, Hydra was stuffed with a number of visually arresting soaps and 'chill pills' (Hydra's answer to the Lush 'bath bomb'). At the time, our access to Lush (and M's employee discount), made it tough to talk ourselves into getting anything.

The soaps that really caught my attention were all modeled on a different SF 'hood. There was a soap for the Castro, a soap for the Sunset, for the Marina, and every other notable area in and around the City. Each of these soaps was crafted in a way to form a picture or motif, resulting in an arresting visual representation of that area. They smelled amazing, too.

I couldn't talk myself into buying any of these SF-themed soaps, and now am kicking myself, because Hydra has been closed for at least a year. Yes, they still have a store in Berkeley, but if their website is any indication of the stock they carry, then there's almost no point in checking it out.

In the most recent episode of the popular television series LOST, two men sit in a Church and discuss St. Thomas the Apostle. The discussion is brief but touches on the faith versus science motif that has defined the central conflict in the show.( The Metaphysics in LOST )