I'm someone's hero

And that's pretty damn neat feeling.

I have a myspace thing because so many of my friends don't have phones, but DO have computers and cable internet (go figger...) and one of them just got her own myspace thingie. I was looking at it, and where it asks you to list your heroes, she's listed me for not being afraid to be myself.

Listen, when your myself, there's no hiding it. All the years that i wasn't myself, it was an ugly time. All the years i spent trying to live up to someone else's expectations, i failed, and called myself a failure for it. All the years people thought i was stuck up because i was too shy to talk to people were very lonely ones. I used to worry what people thought of me, and i'm sure a lot of the time their opinions weren't very nice. I once took people and their insults personally, and you spend a lot of time being angry when you take the world personally.

I'm not sure when it happened. Some time between the two rehab trips, i think. It happened in Oregon. It's almost like i woke up and went, "fuck people and their opinions" and started all over. Complete teardown and rebuild, you might say.

Someone doesn't like my playing? Ain't my problem.
Someone thinks i'm weird. They may be right, but it ain't my problem.
Someone has an issue with some piece of me. Ain't my problem.
Someone doesn't like it when i'm honest with them. See above.
Someone doesn't like my habits? They don't have to hang out with me.
Someone doesn't like me? Move along, find someone else to victimize, because i don't care.

People who get in the way are passed up. People who try to suck the energy from me, those psychic vampires that just drain you when you spend time with them, i usually figure that out pretty quick and kiss them goodbye. People who think less of me because i don't have the same opinions or politics as them can take a hike, too.

Hell yeah i am selfish about my time and my energy and my mental wellbeing and i don't handle people with kid gloves and sorry if you have a puny little ego and self-esteem issues, but get the fuck over yourself.

I'm a spaz and life is awesome and i'm glad to be alive to complain about it. I write horrible fiction, bad poetry, play three instruments like a 10-year-old on LSD, draw things that other people call art (for some reason), and i love it that i can do that.

I have a husband that loves me and i don't know what i'd do without him. I have friends that love me in spite of all my personality defects (maybe because of them?).

I'm here now, thank you very much Ram Dass.

And thanks Joan C for being my friend.

what is cold..

well, it was 3 degrees when i woke up this morning.

nuh nuh nuh nuh nineteen

old song, yeah. Guy named King i think? Back in the day when we had Prince and Queen to listen to, there was also King. But "19" was a Paul Hardcastle song.

But, it's 19 degrees right now. Allegedly, it will drop to 9 before the night is over.

No snow today. But the evil combination of snow that was graded and plowed, then melted slightly, and refroze as more snow fell on it makes getting places interesting. weeee!

Someone i know came over the hill from Medford yesterday and said it took him 3 hours because of the weather. That's my one real issue with KF. It's a pain in the ass to get out of it to other cities, especially in the winter.

And i feel like i'm running out of things to write about for FTTW. I can't really do a lot of bitching about my fellow musicians, because at least a couple of them read over there.

lotsa snow

well, to me it is. Remember, i'm the one who squeals with delight when we get a dusting. It snowed most of yesterday, and then we got a break in the late afternoon, and then it snowed probably all night, and it's been on and off snowing all day today.

New Boots is awesome in this kind of snow. Part of the fun is watching the people who hadn't bothered putting on snow tires yet and have two-wheel drive. They were out all over the place today. The neighbor with the Jetta with low-profile tires, the guy in the big white van out in the middle of S. 6th, going in circles, the lady in the new Nissan that pulled out of Burger King and kept right on going forward into the center median, and the best one, a guy in a late-80s Camaro with lowpro street tires, fishtailing all the way down Washburn. In the morning, i was treated to watching people coming sideways down the offramp that's kitty-corner to our house. Probably not such a treat for them, but fine entertainment over this way.

As for me, yeah, i have it in H4, and i'm the slowest mofo on the road. Your blood pressure is your problem, not mine.

Mine all mine and back

Look! There it is! The New Old Nth of Pril! I obviously have some fixin to do. There's about a year missing on it (the other domain dropped in August or so of 06). The time represented where it ends is right after we moved here to Alabamath Falls. Or Klabama. Or however you wish to derisively mangle the name.

Joni at Pixelita.com is teh arrghsome.

Anyway, with any luck, it should be all befestooned with Prilness by Monday.

coming soon

very soon! The old NthofPril (not the greeblie version or the original one i started on blogger in late 2000). On its own domain. That's right. I've finally been dragged into the 21st century, muttering and grumbling and vascillating and deflecting the entire way, finally giving up that credit card number for some words on a browser bar.

Not ever.

The last election has been turning over in my head lately. The most interesting thing, of course, is that now that the Democrats are in power in Oregon, they intend to raise the tax on beer. I mean, it was the first thing that they made the paper about, because it was pressing and important and all. Nevermind that important stuff like school funding or police funding or keeping the state university system afloat. No. Gotta raise the tax on beer, not for schools or public safety, but to treat people who drink too much of it. Retards.

Yeah see if i EVER vote for one of you again.

How can Oregon Dems redeem themselves, in my eyes? Dismantle the OLCC. As soon as possible, and then completely rewrite all the codes and laws related to alcohol in the state. Nothing less.

(later...) o and let's talk about SNEAKY shall we. Rep. Chuck Rangel (D-NY) wants to reinstate the draft because he hopes it will make future US leaders think twice about staring any silly wars in the future. Chuck, your "I'm a dipshit" forehead sticker is on the way.

After a year, this just occurs to me.

I know a drummer named Tom! *laff*

Laugh, dammit

The Port of L.A. has issued a directive to increase laughter by 30%.

Excellent. Everyone needs to laugh more anyway.

slippy slidey

well, they gave us a forecast of 1 to 3 inches for last night. We had that by 10 pm i think. There's at least 4 or 5 inches stacked up on our back porch.

4runner did awesome drivin this morning. Way less terrifying than the camry is in the snow.

I'm one of those dipshit californians that can't drive in the snow. Ok, wait, i CAN drive in the snow, but it's weird and this is only my second winter in a snowy place. Rather than being the idiot in an SUV with regular tires zipping along and sliding everywhere in 4wd, i'm the sloooooow person in an SUV with mud/snow tires you're stuck behind. So, sorry. Watch for finger and all.

around 3:30

it started snowing. It's snowed pretty steadily since then.

Which brings me to...

all new shows on Adult Swim tonight. Been looking forward to that. Halfway through the first meatwad show, "no signal". Poop.

dammit Jim, I'm a bass player, not a mind reader

so last night i guess the neighbors called the cops and they came by to tell us to shut down at like 8:30.

These neighbors have never said word one to me in the six months we've been here. How am i supposed to know anything about them, specifically that one of them goes to work at 7 am, if they don't talk to me? I hate that kind of passive agressive bullshit. The cops have better things to do than come over and tell me to stop playing.

So I'm angry at these neighbors for a lot of reasons. Mostly, i'm angry because they won't talk to us, even to say hi. I suspect that this is because they're special, being homeowners and all, and we're just mere renters. We have cooties, and to say anything to us would somehow sully them.

Listen, y'know, i may be a jerk sometimes. Ok fairly often. But i try to be considerate. If a neighbor is bothering me, i go talk to them unless they've proven themselves to be someone you can't talk to. I'm not confrontational with people about these kinds of things. If someone had come over, about a month ago when we started this, and said "Hey i get up really early for work can you guys cut it off earlier or play in the daytime it would be great", well, i would have done it. But no one did. One person came over last Saturday and i guess pounded on the front door and said... nothing....really i guess. Dale dealt with them. So i don't know.

But, yeah. Just talk to me. I'll work with ya. Jeezus. Ain't a whole lot to ask, not so much waste of resources on the city's part.

splat

last night i got to see a very drunk woman totally trip over a chair and faceplant. It was too hard not to laugh. So i just laughed and laughed. It was funny, ok? Damn, it was funny.

weee!

Snow started falling about a half hour ago.

!!!

but still..

hey i just listened to the goof off tape from Saturday night.

No wonder the neighbors came over at 8:30 and told us to shut the hell up already.

awesome.

bluh

i don't think it matters who wins this election, or any other election. The outcome is the same. Politicians (and their hooting peanut galleries) talk to constituents as if the constituents are drooling idiots. New inane laws are passed, and old inane ones remain on the books. Someone is trying to tell you and i what we can and cannot do to ourselves, what we can and cannot say, who we should and should not worship, how we should act, etc. Am i singling out a particular party here? No. Because both are guilty. Both are full of bottom feeders and disgusting, hypocritical thieves.

No i'm not cynical about politics at all. (sarcasm)

All i ask is that one day, i don't have to choose between the lesser of the two evils. That i don't look at my ballot and think, "Who is going to damage my city, county, state, district, country the least?".

And don't tell me it's one or the other. I think we all know it's none of the above, in most cases.

challenge what you think they taught you

Have you read Mike's blog, SOS Forests?. The things he writes about should make anyone think about the things we've been taught about forestry and forests. I've been reading him since he first put fingers to keys on it last year. He has now started his second year with a redesign, and thoughtful writings on forest science methodology. Roguepundit's most recent post dovetails nicely with what Mike has been telling us.

If we are critical thinkers, and many of us like to believe we are, we need to stop swallowing the dogma that's been fed to us for the last 20-plus years about forest management, and start questioning it.

digging the geography (dirt geek)

I'm something of a closet earth geek. Not Earth-capital-E-love-your-mother-earth, but earth as in the stuff we tread upon. I think it's fun to stand around looking at the ground and rocks and cliffs and things like that. I DO stand around looking at stuff like that a lot. The fun part is in dredging up bits of knowledge and using them in trying to figure the earth stuff out. What kind of rock is that? Why is it here? How might it have got here? Why is it that color and shape? So, Klamath Falls gives me a case of the "Hey neatos" a lot. A lot of subtle reminders that the area is or was volcanically active. Down at the Grass Lake rest stop on the 97, you learn that you are surrounded right there by five small volcanoes. Going north on the 97, huge hills of basalt, in big squarish chunks, stretch out parallel to the highway. Closer to the surface at the roadbed, chalky stuff. Where the shoreline used to be. Eastward, near Lakeview, is a geyser and i hear there are bubbling mudpots so i must go see that. At the place we get our morning jumpstart, there's a ditch that leads out toward the railyard, always full of steaming water. I guess that's part of the whole geothermal thing around here. KF has pipes of geothermal brine buried under the sidewalks and crosswalks downtown to keep them clear in the winter. Some people have it as heating in their houses, which i guess is free. Heading down to Medford on the 140, you're on the scenic volcanic byway (the same one that wanders through the Modoc National Forest), and you can go check out some lava beds near Lake of the Woods. On a clear day, if you find the right hill, you can see the peaks that surround Crater Lake, pieces of the volcano that collapsed on itself. Mt Shasta is made up of 7 small volcanoes all packed together.

I would like to spend a lot more time poking at the ground and learning about it.

on making noise.

Natalie and I have jammed in the garage probably 5 or 6 times since we decided to do this. Each time, we've come up with a song structure. We switch off. Sometimes i play guitar and she plays drums, and then versey-vicey. No lyrics or anything, just the noise. We finally got to really hear what our brains have been flowing to our fingers the last time. I brought the Yammy 4-track down. It's easier to use and there's no RF interference like we were having with the one that's connected to the PA. It ain't bad, i gotta say.

There's something really cool and liberating, also, about working with an instrument you don't normally play. I've played drums maybe 30 times in my life. And i'm kickin butt on them if i do say so myself. Natalie hasn't played guitar too much, and she's doing some cool stuff. I don't know about her, but it forces me to think differently with regard to rhythm. Rhythm being my prime part, as a bass player. Now i really see how the drums and bass interact, because i play the drums like a bass player. If that makes any sense. Different metering or timing or something involved. You have to break a lot more down to put it together when you play drums. With bass, i just listen, hear where the notes are and where the not-notes are, and you just sort of put the notes in where it feels right. On the drums, i'm not dealing with the notes. I'm placing the not-notes for the rhythm player to build off.

Plus, it being just us, there is no one standing around saying "play it this way". Just me and her, making noise for a while and then laughing and yelling "That was cool! That was awesome! Play it back! Ooh did you hear me nail that change?"

We've told some people about this, this Strange Basin thing (which we are just sort of using as a kind of place holder name) and we get different reactions. Most people think it's cool. There are a couple who you can tell are instantly threatened, just by their body language and what they say after we tell them. They want to know what exactly we're doing (we don't know. So there). They want to weedle their way in (after dismissing us, not so subtly). They want to help (with help like that, who needs a saboteur?).

You know, i really think i've done this whole thing backwards. My timeline goes like this:
Buy bass. Start learning it. Ship it off for repairs. Buy guitar. Goof off with it, but never quite learn it right. Get shoved into jam nights. Continue goofing with guitar, learning an average of one new chord every couple of months, many by accident. Get invited into a working band. Take music theory classes while in working band. Back to jam nights. Start making noise with someone.

Isn't it more like:
Buy guitar. Jam with friends in garage. Find you have too many guitar players. Make one play the bass. Start band. Lose band. Start another band. Lose band. Get into pattern of starting and losing bands, but playing always the same music. Get into jams.

At least that's how it seems to be to me, and for the places i've been since i've been playing.

yeah well i feel really free in the garage. it's so awesome.

nth of pril may be back

I finally got hold of the guy who had the account that the old Nth of Pril (the last one) was hosted by, as well as the hosting company. I'm looking at taking it over, since it was only suspended and not deleted. Just have to take a peep at the finances. We've decided to keep the crapmobile and get the water pump fixed, so i have to take that into account, re-register and re-insure it and then i think i may be able to do it.

For reference: I'd like to take a moment to spit on property management companies that don't allow you to work on your own vehicle on property you rent. I could fix the car myself, for $35 and some frustration, and probably it would take more than book time to do it (would probably take me about a day to do it, because i don't have all the correct tools or a lift). Book time is 3.5 hours. A shop will do it for about $350. Plus, i'll be having it towed. Driving it could cause the $350 repair to quadruple. You drive with a failed waterpump, you easily end up with a blown head gasket. So. The money we will spend to repair this is close to what we pay to live in this place. Big ol' one-finger salute to property management companies.