The Recreated Post

Yesterday, Hal McGee, a great and prolific musician, did a Facebook post with a photo of a book,with a quote from him in it. I found it very inspiring. I first thanked him on that post,in the comments section. Then I shared his post to my page. Then I tried to write my own response to it. Hell, I DID write a response to it. I must have had a moment when the writing fairies came to me, because I was flying by the time I finished writing it. I was feeling so good about it that I tagged a ton of people, including many artists I wouldn't normally bother with such things. Then I hit the button to post it. And it disappeared.

And I bitched, and I moaned, and my head hit the skids, hard. Depressed in a big way for the rest of the day. Chrissy tried her best to help, and help she very much did; but got mentally banged around a bit for her troubles too. Sweets, I love you. Don't know how you put up with me.

Anyway, she wanted me to try again, so I did. I didn't entirely care for what I wrote, so I went to sleep depressed, and woke up that way too. Took care of the kids while she slept this morning. But when she woke up she wanted me to try again. And this time I think I've come up with something worth posting. Not the same magic or heavenly choirs upon reading it, but it functions and doesn't make me want to retch or throw the computer against the wall. With that ringing endorsement, here it is.

While I agree with the general tone of Hal's post, some things are of course different for me. Music is not the only thing I live for, and actually never has been. More generally, creating things- and giving new life and new purposes to old, discarded or orphaned things- is what I live for, on this particular level. These have made up my main purpose, the path that has sustained me through tough times, the way that has given my life a sense of meaning and my self a sense of value. When I am making things I am lost in the action and living for that moment and it feels really, really good. When I am reusing or repurposing things in my creative work, I feel good on so many levels it's hard to describe. It's a little bit of animistic love that projects the idea of not wasting things, of finding use in the apparently useless; salvage, or from probably the same linguistic root, salvation. Salvation in a very hands-on way.
  
Of course, in the old days I could have just lived for that, but now I have a family. My kids bring a different and deeper level to my life. A parent has two choices: attend or neglect. Every day is a little tug of war between those two poles. I'm not saying you have to hover over every little thing, but you have to at least be aware, even if you're hanging back and letting them grow. Which makes it kind of hard to take time to create in the way that I'm used to. When what you do is dependent upon a level of concentration which demands that you shut everyone and everything else out while you work, it becomes more of an all or nothing proposition when it comes to choose how to spend your time. This is especially true if you and your wife ARE the support system, and can't afford too much child care. There isn't the choice of taking a break, playing with the kids, then going back to work. Running
opposite to this, pulling hard in the other direction, is the reality that childhood moves quickly. If you are busy you'll miss it, and there are no second chances. With that in mind, Chrissy and I have been trying to spend as much time with our kids as possible. That shouldn't feel painful to me but it does, because what I'm putting in the background is an entire way of life. It is a living part of me, it's my connection to the world and feeling like I even belong in it, it's what keeps me sane. I am not active in it to the extent that I need to be. And I mean that for me, on an inner level, not in any concrete way. The world can do quite fine without my work. But I can't. Nonetheless, my kids need me, my wife needs me, and I need me to be there with my kids, for me as well as them. I will sometimes spend all day waiting for a moment's peace or time to work, then find myself feeling so much love for them at night that I miss them and want to wake them up and hug them. This is not a black and white, easy, simple situation. 

Something I liked about Hal's post was that he refuses to be put off by some of the uglier thoughts you might face when your work is done for the sake of doing it, not for a paycheck, and not, horrible though it is to say, because there are necessarily even many people waiting for it. He's proud of how prolific he is (as I think he should be). He is not at all concerned with other people's concerns about too much audio getting out there into the world cluttering up people's choices- he seems to poke fun at that whole notion, to laugh at it. Good. I needed to hear that. I needed- seriously NEEDED- to hear someone say that.Thank you, thank you, and again, thank you.

This brings up an important point about creating that seems to have eluded many people: living as a creating person is a process, and cannot be about goals or projects. Those are what give you the traction to stay on the road, the guard rails, even at times the gas. But projects end, goals are realized (or not), and you are....where? If you are not living the process, you're in trouble. And if you're constantly questioning things like if you're doing too much art (? seriously), are you getting paid, is it worth your while....something will rot right out from underneath you. I seriously dislike having my state of mind constantly undermined by this crap. I'm going to have to stop listening, it's simply bad for me. Yes, I deserve to get paid, damn straight. But I deserve to create without having to worry about that too. I can be bought, but my creativity is priceless to me. Of course I want to be heard; but if I'm so busy worrying about that that I get depressed and stop creating, no positive purpose is served. It is becoming clear to me, with a little help from my friends: full speed ahead, as blindly and blissfully as need be. Let the rest sort itself out, or deal with it as you can. But keep going- for the right reason: because it feels right to do so.

I Hear Martians

A couple of weeks ago, this was almost ready to post. Then life intruded and, eh.....

I HEAR MARTIANS

Not literally. Ever have one ear plug up or get enough pressure in it that the natural pitch you hear is changed? The result is two ears hearing in different pitches, and sounds something like ring modulation or detuning. Anyone familiar with the narration on the track "Legacy" from "Darkland Express" knows the sound. You would think, with my background and interests, that this would be really interesting and that I would enjoy it. That is true some times, but those are in the minority. Overall, it's pretty annoying, especially when the girls are running around and screaming as they play, seeing who can laugh most shrilly and loudly. (This usually happens during tub time, when the sound is amplified by the tub walls and glass doors- which pegs my meters, bounces my eyes around in their sockets, and inadvertantly gnashes my teeth together in a lock-jawed grimace. Ah, parenthood.)

The first time this happened to me, many years ago, I found it more interesting, despite that it still was annoying, and in fact the pressure making it possible was painful. I remember standing in line at a local grocery store and listening to music at the checkout, and finding the weird harmonies produced to be very educational and fascinating. But all the voices sounding so garbled definitely got on my nerves after a while.

Sometimes I will fall back on not actually listening, but letting my brain interpret the dialogue and songs around me. Sort of an autopilot function, it keeps me distracted and occassionally amused. Lulu will start singing a school song with the melody of"Frere Jaques", and my semi-idle grey matter will chime in: "Hairy jock strap/ Hairy jock strap/ Dormammu/ Dormammu/ Where is Talky Tina/ Where is Talky Tina/ On the stairs/ Giving glares."

I'd like to get my hands on an actual ring modulator, it's one of the few things missing from my tool box. Of course right now I would't be able to tell what it sounded like. Or, it would sound like everthing else. Or twice as bad. It would be like checking out cologne or perfume if you've got a cold. Of course these days all efforts and funds for the Airship are going into finishing up the studio. I hope to be finished with this sometime before I die, so that I can gaze upon it once before going into the promised land of the eternal jam session, where free grub and free love combine with free expression, and home for my free Willy will be transient yet serially eternal.

Sorry, daydreaming again. Need a cello still, of course, that's actually number one on the list. I recently read the liner notes to the remaster of the first ELO album and took heart from Roy Wood saying that the cello on "10538 Overture" and the rest was actually of the cheap Chinese variety. So as I've often suspected- what I can afford will probably do the trick just fine. I have plans to build something for "long string bowing" (meaning, deeper notes than violin), but getting to that may take some time. Anyway.....Other equipment thoughts....I have been in need of a better drum throne since shortly after getting the one I still use, and that was in 1980. I have this crazy scheme to build something that will mimic the height and angle of the passenger seat in our car, which affords me perfect flexibility and thrust. I don't know how it would work with the actual height of my bass drum though. I think it would be too short. I'd end up looking like a shriveled old lady behind my kit. Of course I could give a crap what I look like, but if I have to play way up over my head, like I'm driving a chopper with ape-hangers, I'm probably in trouble. I may measure the height from the floor to where my butt would theoretically rest, and try to replicate that in front of the kit before I build anything. The ape-hanger routine would be especially problematic considering I have quite a few nice additions to the kit and am trying to build (or buy, if somehow that would be cheaper) a setup to include them. Example: a local hardware store had a huge range of cowbell sizes. They aren't as sturdy as LP bells, but I'm not going to be smacking the crap out of them on a nightly basis either. I think the total, with my oldest and largest LP bell Mark got me 30 plus years ago, will come to around 8 bells. You know what this means; however I manage to mount them, I will have to put up a sign saying "More Cowbell". I have thought about stacking them all vertically on a single rod, possibly fanning them out bit for greater accessability.

The cowbells, then, don't necessarily make for trouble in ape-hanger city. (Take that sentence and say it out of context in conversation, preferably within a group of people; if it's in public, perhaps at a restaurant, or at work, even better. Don't explain yourself; at most, be cryptic and hint mysteriously.In fact, the stranger your bullshit explanation is, the better. Tell me in detail about the event and I'll post it here and send you a free CD from the PA catalog, your choice. Seriously.) But I have also been collecting, and making, various chimes to hang over my head. In the old studio setup, the beams above my head were exposed, so I could hang them from nails and just reach up and hit them. (The best examples of this currently on CD are scattered throughout "A Play Of Light And Shadow".) I intend to add to this, not just more chimes but eventually a set of woodblocks and all sorts of other things. So some kind of cage setup will almost certainly become necessary. Ape-hangers...cage...maybe it's destiny appearing in the form of linguistic kizmet. Huzzah!

Seriously, I have boxes and boxes of stuff I've been collecting- mostly cheap toys and percussives and incredibly cheap stringed things- that have just been stored, waiting for a time when they can rise and bring their ancient evil to a sleepy little northwest town. I had to move around a bunch of stuff to clear the studio to work on it, and got a fresh look at some of it. Makes me salivate in a way that only thoughts of Thai food and certain cunning linguist experiences have before.

EPILOGUE: The hearing eventually cleared up. It took the better part of a week though.

The autopilot song distractor has kept me very busy over the years. It provides me with all sorts of possibilities for mishearing language, and has been an invaluable source of inspiration for my little book of potential song titles. I do hope you'll get to meet some of them later. This will of course mean me producing more music for public consuption, so...Like I said, I do hope etc.

I'm still not much further ahead on settling the apehanger drum quandary. I measured the passenger seat: if I were to recreate it as a drum throne, my ass would be approximately 10 inches off the ground. Don't see how that would be possible playing a 22 inch bass drum, with toms over that and cymbals over the toms.I can solve lots of mounting problems without too much hassle; maybe just build a rack/cage out of threaded pipe. But how to solve that "sittin' low" problem.....I'm as stumped now as I was when the thought first occurred to me.

I am no closer now to a ring modulator or a cello than I have been in ages. I occasionally think about selling some books, but when I go to make the cut, I vaporlock and stall out. As I get older, more crotchety and have less time- WAAYY less time- old dreams of reading every interesting thing I picked up cheap are starting to give way to sardonic realist assessments wherein I choose the most utilitarian or enriching tomes and axe the rest. It's like getting the itch to hack off a big head of hair and just enjoy the simplicity and coolness of a buzz cut. (I have just recently done this, in fact.) This particular dream is a bit of a leaky boat, 'cause I keep buying books. Just not as many, or as often. But the books are different, and hair grows back, and....eh. It's taken a few decades but I'm almost where I want to be in terms of creative tools. The list is getting shorter all the time.

How was that entry? Was it informative and fun, or more like watching paint dry? Please send your answers to 1-800-UBITEME.

Musical Amphibians

I use the term amphibian here as Aldous Huxley did in a wonderful essay called "The Education Of An Amphibian". He used it to refer to a being at home in two (or in the case of humans, many) worlds. In this case, I am referring to myself and certain fellow musicians who have this habit of making music in both abstract and song forms. I will be taking the liberty of speaking for us, without having checked or cleared anything beforehand. This is something I normally would not do, and I hope I don't misrepresent anyone's views. 
     
We are surrounded by categories: specialization and niches and pigeonholes into which we, and our activities, are routinely expected to fit. Not doing this can be viewed as suspect or just plain weird by people unused to that level of artistic diversity. Those of us acting in this way are not doing it out of indecision. On the contrary, we have made a very definite decision that no such division is acceptable to us. We try to make good music, whatever form it takes. We like a range of forms; we produce in a range of forms. We deviate from those forms, and combine them, as we see fit, to match what we want to put across. Many musical judgments and conventions taken for granted in the world of commercial music, and in traditional musics, may not be adhered to; for the simple reason that to experiment with these boundaries may produce interesting, entertaining, and artistically satisfying results.

It is also not unusual for us to be multi-instrumentalists, poets, and visual artists/designers. We're not showoffs, we're just having fun while taking care of the necessities of making things to share with other people. Again, it's about not limiting yourself. You're not supposed to do those things yourself? Who says? Why not? What a silly restriction. Who came up with that one? 

In a previous blog entry, I made brief mention of a few of these fellows. I'd like to add a little more detail now.

Don Campau (pronounced "Comp-O") has been at this probably the longest of any of the folks I'm going to bring up here. His use of multiple forms goes back into the late '60s, early '70s, to the best of my knowledge. In many ways he epitomizes this musical polymorphousness. Experimentation with any and all possible instruments (and combination of instruments), acoustic and electric/electronic sounds, field recordings, poetry and singing, melodic songs and noise, he's basically done it all. And yet even for those of us who've been listening a while (I first heard Don back in '85), he continues to come up with surprises. Let me tell you about a few things he's put out recently that come immediately to mind. One of his recent releases, "Moldable Head" was made of record skips from classical records, along with a few very subtle bits of added instrumentation, mostly synth. This could have been a fun bit of noise only; but Don manages to make it thematically interesting, melodically involving. I thought the whole concept was refreshing, but what he managed to do with it raised it well beyond novelty to the point where I was more focused on it as good music, and that was a very pleasant surprise. Further into the abstract realm is the wonderful "Lilly Pad", which features two long tracks of atmospheric music, sculpted from diverse types of sound- all sorts of instruments conventional and unconventional, field recordings and short wave radio, and so on. This is the type of album I used to hunt for back in the old vinyl days, when I was discovering how huge the world of music could be, and a find like early Tangerine Dream or early Ralph Lundsten or Popol Vuh could change the way you heard things forever. A warning though: this is not new age lite, with breathy synths and tinkling piano. This sounds like something alive, in all its complexity. Last, I'd like to mention Don's most recent compilation, a "best of" from 2000-2009. Here you get to meet Don the song writer. He's a great lyricist, and often has a strong and sardonic sense of humor to his words. Titles such as "I Nailed Sarah Palin" and "I Wish I Was Suave Like Peter Jennings" tell a bit about that. There's a hilarious L.A. metal parody, "Stop Don't Go". And just a bunch of imaginative narratives with great music. Don's website is www.lonelywhistlemusic.com. Those three releases I mentioned are seriously just the tip of the iceberg. If you're not already a fan, check him out please. 

Charles Rice Goff III has done plenty of solo work, and also work in various projects, such as The Magic Potty Babies and Turkey Makes Me Sleepy. He's the only one I'll be mentioning that I've actually met in person, back in 2003. He came out to visit his friend and ex-bandmate Eric Matchett, who lived within a couple miles of my old place. I was in the middle of recording so we were having trouble scheduling; but the night after I recorded "Planet Of Garbage", he and Eric and I met up, went for Thai food, and talked for hours. I had a wonderful time. Since then we have stayed in touch, and have listened to plenty of each other's work. Among CRGIII's many releases is the excellent "Songs For A Blacksmith's Apron". This is his take on country music, and it is wonderful. Does it sound like country music? No, not especially. It sounds more like country music than Loren Mazzacane Conners sounds like blues. It sounds like...well, like something only CRGIII could do. The first track is about seeing William Burrough's house and the locals being disinterested and ignorant of its history; it mentions "my friends in the good ol' avante garde!", which gives you perhaps a better idea of its country cred. He does an old traditional song about Quantrill's raiders, and explains that Quantrill was a psycopath who, with his raiders, went around during the civil war slaughtering non-combatants (men, women and children) for living in the wrong place. The song, however, was written as a celebration. It gets the treatment it deserves; very creepy.I could go on; I'll just recommend it very highly instead. For a bit of CRGIII's more abstract work, you might try some history and check out "RE:". It's a collection of early pieces that is good and solidly interesting straight through. Check it, and tons of other stuff, out on the Taped Rugs site.

The work of Bret Hart covers many different song formats, and like the rest of us I'm talking about here, the vision for the music is primary, and the consideration of "format", unless it is specifically chosen ahead of time, is something best decided afterwards if at all. You can hear a lot of different influences: country and blues and folk, screaming hard experimentalism, industrial avante garde. One of the main elements creeping in to gently tug at the direction of things is Korean music; Bret lived and taught there for years, and became familiar with the instruments and the music. He has his own highly inventive and inspired take on it, of course. And of course no combination of the above-named elements is off limits. Bret has solo releases, a whole series of excellent duets albums (I did two with him and had a blast), work with the band Hipbone, and a lot more. Like Don and CRGIII, Bret is an immediately recognizable musician. His approach is simply unique. When he sent me his tracks for our first duets CD, my first thought was, "I've never heard anything like this." Which to me is almost always a good thing, and in this case, definitely. By turns whispy and harsh, it sounded like someone scratching pictures into the air with a magic bone. What could I possibly mean by that? Listen to his stuff and find out.

Now, my apologies to all three gentlemen mentioned here; I had tried initially to do something more in depth for all three, and ended by doing progressively smaller paragraphs. I also need to do some street preachin' for my friend Eric Wallack, who is one of the most amazing musicians it's ever been my pleasure to work with. My excuse for stopping here is that after starting this entry months and months ago, I'm finally at a point where I might be able to get it finished and posted, and I want to make sure that happens. I suppose it shouldn't be difficult; but because I'm not just spouting BS and have to actually THINK about what I'm writing, and maybe even go look at CD covers and take good care with things like titles and facts, it increases the difficulty factors, under these circumstances, by about ten. Can't trust my memory, I'm getting daddynesia; then, it's so difficult to find time here these days....blahblah etc. But true. I now sleep less yet accomplish less of (potential) cultural value than I have at any time since I started trying to make art as a pre-teen. I have reason to hope this will improve as time goes on. I'm counting on it.

YEAR'S END ROUNDUP

2011 draws to a close in a few hours, 2012 begins. No, I don't expect the end of the world next year. I think the Mayans went as far as 2012 and said, "Yeah, that's enough for now. We'll do more later." If anyone's in doubt, think back: Y2k, the Harmonic Convergence (or as Richie Hass put it, the Harmonica Virgins). And being raised in L.A., I can think of probably half a dozen predictions of "The Big One" (quake) that turned out to be nothing. The first one I can think of back in...'69? was responsible for two songs that I can think of right off: Deep Purple's "Faultline" and Shango's "Day After Day", which even had lyrics descriptive of the big event (California was supposed to split off from the mainland and become an island):

"Day after day more people come to L.A.
Shhh! Better get ready, the whole place goin' be slippin' away
Where can we go when there's no San Francisco
Better get ready to tie up de boat in Idaho...

Do you know the swim?
Ya betta learn quick Jim
Those who don't know the swim
Betta be singin' de hymn."

And so on. And people really did believe this, they were scared. The way I see it, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen, and there's no point in living life according to that. If you do, you could just end up doing stupid things for the sake of being part of something huge, which proves to be nothing after all. And won't you look silly! How about that comet cult, wearing unisex clothes, the guys castrating themselves with dental floss or whatnot, all killing themselves so they could meet the cosmic whatnots. Er, uh...no thanks.

I have a saying with my family...not the family I've recently made, the one I was born into...It's fairly simple and direct. "Happy New Year, let's hope it's better than last year." Which sounds kind of doomy and pessimistic, but, well, my family definitely have, shall we say a certain outlook. It's not terrible, but things could always be better. Of course if pressed, we will tell you things could always be worse. You had to mention that?

So let's say it another way. Inclusively, so as not to upset anyone.

Happy New Year. Let's hope it's better than last year. Let's dare, and hope it'll be a downright good year. Let's hope it's a year for resolving old difficulties, moving into positive new directions which will last a good long time. Let's hope Congress gets their collective heads out of their collective asses and starts acting like they care about the people who elected them. Let's hope the resistance we've seen around the world, from people who are sick of being pushed around, continues. Let's hear it for bloodless revolutions. Let's hope a few good trends slip in among the crap in (insert your field of interests here). Let's hope for humanity rather than vanity and greed to make a good showing. Let's hope for some different outlooks rather than the same old shit in new clothes. Let's hope for understanding to outpace ignorance on a few more occasions. Oh, and a cello and a ring modulator.

Now that's not too much to wish for is it?

Don't answer that.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Ramble One

OK, here we go. You know....the usual. But eleven months later.

Obviously I've been busy with the kids, being a stay-at-home dad, and all that goes with that. But I've also managed to keep other interests afloat, mostly in the form continuing education- mostly listening and reading. Doesn't seem like much but it can count. Helps to keep things from drying up, having new info flowing in. More on that shortly.

Anyone who also follows Phantom Airship proper knows that there have been a few advances with my online capability- finally on high speed; this in turn has led to bigger site storage (which I have yet to make much use of!), and the uploading of Paper Bag's "Music To Trash" for free download. I am also working on other things to make available for free. Short on that morely.

In other news: Kevin Costner is slated to star as composer Antonin Dvorak in the upcoming biopic "Dances With Slavs". By itself the soundtrack promises to be a megahit, with tracks by Brian Adams, Survivor, Justin Bieber, Korn, System Of A Down, Ezra vs. Jehu, and Josh Grobin. Those who've seen sneak previews of the film call it sensitive, romantic and action-packed. Sounds great. Better get camped out for that one early.

(They'd tried to get the Moody Blues to do a version of the New World symphony for the soundtrack, but it didn't work out.)

Anyway, back to reports of life at stately Segal Manor, the cover home for Phantom Airship's secret base of operations. Fun things around the house: Lulu and I did an improvised operatic duet one morning over whether she was going to come into the bathroom for her morning pee or not. (I sang yes, she sang no. I won.) She turns four late this month. Four going on fourteen. What a character! Very animated. Goes around singing "House Of Four Doors" from the Moody Blues' "In Search Of The Lost Chord", regularly requests either Abba's "Fernando" or Love's "7&7 Is" to dance to. Recently around dinner time she was humming Roy Wood's "See My Baby Jive", which she knows just from me singing it to her, I don't know if she's even heard it. One might think from this she's musically inclined, but she mostly just listens at this point. She spends a lot of time with her art supplies, she loves drawing and painting.

Lux just turned one the middle of last month. She's definitely an animated bundle too. Good sense of humor, definite opinions which she's not afraid to share (even if they're not intelligible in English, the message is usually crystal clear). She's just started walking, doesn't do it much, still getting used to it. She is getting into things, which causes some friction between her and Lulu. Lulu is often very good about cleaning up after herself, and has certain places she likes her stuff. Along comes little Lux to pull everything out, scatter it on the floor, stick it in her mouth, etc. Lulu rarely takes this calmly, and....sneak preview of the next ten years, probably. Nonetheless they play together well, especially in the tub. Lux gets mad when you take her out of tub time with Lulu, not when she goes in.

Chrissy is Supermom, remembering all the normal stuff that routinely slips my mind; and she feeds us all with five-star restaurant quality cooking. I am the proverbial deer in the headlights in the kitchen. She, on the other hand, can look around for a couple minutes and whip us up something amazing out of leftovers or frozen stuff; or, given time, she'll plan something out. The last time I had a bad meal was at a restaurant. Probably the last 10 or more bad meals I had were at restaurants. It doesn't happen often, but it happens. I can't remember the last time that happened at home.

My health continues to take various twists and turns. Still basically good but I seem to keep needing more equipment and supplies. Sometimes I feel like a Fiat (whose letters are said to stand for "Fix It Again Tony"). I can't complain, I just wish I wasn't such an expense to maintain. Chrissy never complains about that, but it still bugs me. I know others who are in far worse health than me, so...eh. It is what it is.

Books: currently reading "Holding Oniah" by Raven V. Brook. It's a supernatural thriller, and it's very good. New book by a new author, local here to Portland. Intriguing concept (people with psychic abilities kidnapped/brainwashed from an early age, used as spies and weapons on missions they have no memory of after). Part one of a projected trilogy. Looks like I'll have to wait for each book now. Good books are worth the wait but I am sometimes (ha!) impatient. I'll have more to say about this one when I finish it. Despite the wealth of things I'll be mentioning here, this is all spread out since the last post (January!), so... Priah (prior) to Oniah was "How To Wreck A Nice Beach", the story of the vocoder from WWII through to Hip Hop. Pretty amazing stuff, good book....Before that was a biography of Steve Marriott called "All Too Beautiful", also excellent. The next one back was a biography of Arthur Lee- not the recent one by John Einerson, which I want to read, but an earlier one by Barney Hoskins. He actually interviewed Lee and Bryan Maclean, shortly before Maclean died. Once again, good stuff. And I almost forgot: I always need a good browsing book, for times when I want to read but don't want to get caught up in something I'm involved heavily in (I HATE getting pulled away). Good books of this type are usually encyclopedic rather than narrative. My roots as a film freak show when I say I'm really enjoying the current one: "Hammer Films: The Unsung Heroes", by Wayne Kinsey. It's a history of Hammer Films which focuses not on the films or the stars, but on the people behind the cameras and the infrastructure of the studio. This guy got everybody, from the studio heads and directors to the camera operators all the way down to the people who took care of food and tea! This gives a unique perspective, the kinds of things I've personally been interested in for years but which never turned up in any other book. And not just about Hammer, but in general. As someone with a personal interest- how did such a low budget operation turn out such classy product? If there's one definitive book to answer that question, this is it. I've barely scratched the surface but am excited to find out more. Browsing books usually take me months, and I can't imagine I'll grow tired of this one.

Listening: much classical (Chopin, Dvorak, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Moussorgsky, Brahms, Grieg); Jazz (catching up with Miles Davis' transition from mid-60s to early 1970 with "ESP", "Miles Smiles", "Nefertiti", and "Live Evil"; Bennie Maupin, Jimmy Smith); a slew of world music offerings, from all over Africa, eastern Europe, and Asia; and of course a perpetual reexamination of old favorites. For example, a recent evening's dishwashing music: Savoy Brown/Raw Sienna; Amon Duul II/Wolf City; Hawkwind/Hall of the Mountain Grill. Great arrangements, textures, playing. Heavy on atmosphere. Now of course, this might lead some to complain: "Hey, howcum ya nevah listen to no new music? Hahh?" To which I would reply: " Who sez I don't?" First off, great new music from many of my fellow independent musicians comes my way. Eric Wallack, Don Campau, Bret Hart, Charles Rice Goff III. If ya don't know them people, shut ya piehole about new music, I sez! And of course they're all veteran musicians and have been making great stuff for decades, so...new? Well if you haven't heard it, it's new. But then there's other stuff....

I suppose the biggest surprise for me was Opeth. Now....I'd heard my share of what some, including myself, having not so lovingly dubbed "cookie monster vocals". Always thought it was kinda dumb. I didn't remember that had anything to do with Opeth when I picked up a CD or two from the library to give a listen. So when I heard the first minute or two of "Ghost Reveries", my instinct was to chuckle and turn it off. But this time, something seemed different. It seemed....right? Like there was a genuine artistic intent, with a lot of thought, behind what I was hearing, and I do just mean in the first couple of minutes, right off. So I kept listening. And when, after a few more minutes, the music changed dynamics, the guitars changed to Crimsonesque interlocking patterns (sometimes on acoustic) and really fine, melodic, regular vocals, I knew I was on to something. So why didn't they let this guy sing all the time, and tell cookie monster to go back to being roadie or fuck off in the bar? Eh eh. Same guy, singing both vocal styles. Also playing one half of the intricate guitar parts, writing most (or all?) of the music...So, not so easy. HAS to be intent there, just like I thought I heard, and not just somebody trying to scream way down through his balls. Well I listened to the whole CD and then I listened to some others, like "Blackwater Park", and a more recent one, whose name unfortunately escapes me. Dug 'em all. Who knew? I found the stuff not only well played, well written, and well produced, but also- and this was by far the biggest surprise- emotionally involving. I repeat- who knew? Not me. All hail the library.

I heard some other current bands, more highly regarded (at least in the press and prog circles), and just didn't think much of 'em. There are people who seem to be afraid of solos the way politicians became afraid of the term "liberal". Wouldn't want anyone to think they were self-indulgent, no. And while rhythmically complex stuff has remained pretty easy to find, melodic complexity (or even melody) has not. And most attempts I've heard which try to fill that gap with sonic texture are equally lazy, unvarying, and unimaginative. But then there's other stuff....

Ya gotta love the library, I say. Things I would never have known existed are sitting there, waiting to be checked out and discovered. Let me throw some names by you, and if you are able to check them out, may I recommend you do so:

Temple University Percussion Ensemble: Forests Of The Sun. What was I saying back there about lame use of texture? And a few other complaints? Everything missing from the music I was alluding to in that paragraph is here in this CD. Never heard of the ensemble or the featured composers before, but am very glad I have now. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart. Of course I've heard of (and have heard) Bela Fleck. A pretty well-known guy. But I'd never heard of this project. He took a banjo around the world and sat in with various musicians, and recorded the results. This disc highlights some sessions from Africa, and it's a doozy. His aim is always to fit in, his approach respectful to his brother and sister musicians, never pushing to (super)impose himself. Superb.

Debasi Bhattacharya: Calcutta Chronicles: Indian Slide Guitar Odyssey. Do I really have to go any further than the title? Well maybe so. This brilliant musician does the string bending associated with sitar on guitar, using a slide. That's the seriously dumbed-down version, there's so much more to it than that, including all kinds of crossover technique. If this description produces the slightest itch of curiousity in you, you should probably check it out, I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Buzzcocks: A Different Kind Of Tension (2 cd edition). This one's got all the associated singles from the time period, plus some live stuff. Effin' cool, sez I. Dig the melodies, the arrangements, the lyrics, all delivered with leadfisted passion.

Steven Mackey: Dream House. An analogical mix of building a house and the history of a relationship, and the security of relationships and houses, etc. Not too specific lyrically, which helps. Delivered by a lead vocalist, a small choral group, and a small electric guitar chamber group, within a bigger orchestral setting. I was half afeared it would suck, but I truly enjoyed it. It is by turns sparse, dense, eerie, genuinely sad, thought-provoking, image inducing...any and all of which make it worth a spin, at very least.

Well, er....seems I've done some reviews. Perhaps if I aim at doing more next time, I'll get back here sooner. I sure have some good listens and reads and views to tell you about. Mostly listens, because that's what I seem to manage to make the most time for on a consistent basis. If I don't manage to get another post up before the holidays or year's ends, Happy Allofit, everybody!

A Good Old-Fashioned Muse

Egads.

Well, obviously I knew this kind of gap between posts could happen- nay, was likely- which was why I warned about it in the very first post. That said....

Egads.

OK, well as many of you know, time hasn't exactly been standing still around the Segal household. We've welcomed another daughter into the family and have been ridiculously busy, busier than we ever knew was possible.

In the sleepy little town of Cliche's Green, an ancient evil has arisen. No wait, a diaper needs changing. False alarm, sorry.

I was supposed to not worry too much about literary worth, just improvise a post and slap it up
there, above all keep it constant and not be dogged by nagging questions of quality, relevance, cohesion, etc. Eghh...Once an English major, always...

So...a new year begins. My energy level for creative things is predictably low right now, which
everything in me wants to fight against because my INTENTION for creative things is permanently set for HI/MAX. Finding time to match the intention to the reality has been dwindling more every day, every year. I worry that like one dead spark plug in a series, a long lull or series of breaks could stop the engine. Scary stuff.

My stopgap measure these last few years has been "acquisition". Basically, the plan for the Phantom Airship involves: acquisition (hunting and gathering things off the master list to properly stock the toolboxes and make all the various departments ready to fly); education (AKA continuing ed- study and practice, etc.); workspaces (creating or improving them); creations (projected/existing/ongoing work); and promotion. I have done a little of each of these, out of necessity; but more often than not, the easiest one to advance while on the go and while having little time to expend on the more demanding aspects, is acquisition. Look for deals, hit thrift stores and garage sales; spend some time on education and learn how to make some things myself.

Acquisition as a means of satisfaction does have its drawbacks, especially when time to make
immediate concrete use of the acquisitions is barely available- if at all. Add to this the strain even small purchases have on our budget right now and acquisition starts to come up somewhat afflicted in the short-term gratification department. Creating is obviously the main goal but there's almost no time for that, currently. Education...the study part of that can be (and has been) done sporadically, as time permits.

For some reason this all reminds me of a joke told by (if I remember correctly) Jackie Mason. It
went something like "How do you like this AIDS? I tell ya I want to find a good old fashioned girl, the kind that will just give me syphillis."

Meanwhile,I do have some things in place to help me catch ideas as they come hurtling through;
several notebooks of musical ideas, a portable tape recorder to sing, hum, tap and talk into. There should be plenty of raw material to sort through when I 'm able. I've managed to take pictures, plenty of them, and have even done a few new pen and ink drawings. It's all adding up, getting stored for future use.

And there's always the "titles" book. In this are collected all the bizarre song titles that come to
me from various sources, again for use at a later date.

So I must keep on a keepin' on and hope I can keep slowly moving ahead, always with the eye on sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

No that was not intentional, I actually fell asleep while typing. This is what I get for trying to
update in the middle of the night after doing a giant load of dishes. Well that's all the spews
that's fit to post for tonight. With any luck or with proper doggedness I'll be back sometime in the near future to discuss the continuing saga.

The Dance Of Lulu

Sorry about the time between entries- I warned you this might happen. At least I'm consistently inconsistent.

So the other day it was too hot here to play outside, Chrissy was sleeping to prepare for a work night (12 hour graveyard), and I was taking care of Lulu. This means, of course, not only making sure she's fed, safe, gets to the potty on time, etc., but also that she's entertained and is keeping her brain (and hopefully her body) active. We generally don't let her watch t.v., having learned from experience that she gets addicted to it. Even though we make sure she watches good stuff, she doesn't need to learn any kind of obsessive behavior at this early an age. We have even had a problem with as healthy an interest as reading. We'd put her to bed for the night, and after we'd left the room, she'd go and turn on the light, grab a bunch of books, and start going through them. We have no idea how often this happened before we caught on, or how long she'd go before she'd get tired and go to bed. One night it took us the better part of two hours to get her to stop. We finally succeeded only because we made the difficult decision to remove the books from her room and put them in ours. We obviously don't want to discourage her reading, but we do want her to get some sleep. Now she gets read to before bedtime in our room.

But I digress. I allowed her to watch her "Little People" DVD repeated times yesterday, and some "Thomas The Tank Engine". Also an extended bit of "SciGirls", which is about girls excelling in science; this episode was about archeology. Lulu was the one whose attention was caught by it, which made me happy. It kept her attention clear through to the end of the show.

While she watched, I took this rare opportunity to do some work, which is possible because my desk is in the family room, along with the t.v. After a point it dawned on me how much time I'd left her in the care of the DVDs, and that I'd better get back to being an active dad. I came out from behind the superyard fence seperating my desk from the rest of the room, and thought maybe it was time for a break from the kiddie stuff.

I grabbed a DVD of Atomic Rooster and before I put it in, I told her quietly that I wanted to see if she'd like this, and that we didn't have to watch it for long if she didn't want to. She said "OK daddy". I put the disc in and pressed play.

This is live footage from "Beat Club", the era of the band with Chris Farlowe on vocals. As soon as the music started, she was rocking and jumping in her seat. She looked at me with a big smile and said "This is CRAZY music daddy! I LIKE IT!" and with that, she got up and starting dancing furiously all around the room, jumping and waving her hands and making up her own lyrics, which she yelled out exuberantly. They kept changing and I couldn't follow them, except for a word here and there. She was going at it with such abandon and energy that I figured she'd have to burn out pretty quickly. Nope. She stopped about 15-20 minutes into it, and only because she'd danced herself into having a poop.

Bear in mind, we listen to a variety of music, hours a day- EVERY day- and she's never reacted to anything like this before.

I found this whole thing so funny that today I brought Chrissy downstairs to see it. Lulu had been asking all morning to do it again anyway (and several times last night). Today, she danced over 30 minutes. Chrissy loved it. She was on the couch with me while Lulu gave vigorous expression to her muse. (No poop today, thankfully.)

Apparently, Lulu wasn't the only one rockin' and rollin'; Chrissy told me our gestating girl, currently nicknamed Peanut, was going nuts inside her. This was the first time anything like this had happened during the pregnancy (she's halfway home). Chrissy wondered aloud if this could be bad for her, and I said, well, maybe she's reacting to Lulu's singing, that's the loudest thing in the room anyway. But Peanut continued to rock during the spots where Lulu got quiet. So we might have another rocker on our hands. My comment to Chrissy was, "Well, inside I'm doing the same thing". Rooster's always made me react that way. If I'm alone there's a lot of furious head bobbing going on, transported air organ/drum/guitar, etc.

Lulu has so far taken to all kinds of music. She can already identify Beatles, Moody Blues, Bob Marley, Duran Duran, Abba, and a few others only a couple of notes or so into a song when it comes on the radio. She also likes Pink Floyd, bluegrass, brass bands, etc. This being the US, there's no chance she'll ever hear Rooster on the radio, but there's no chance it won't be a part of her life. Not in this household.

In other news: as mentioned on the update at gregsegal.com, I've finally managed to get some musical things happening. I sent Hyam Sosnow 3 CDs of improvised source tracks for him to cut/paste/loop as he pleases; and I've sent Eric Wallack a CD of p'ipa improvisations. One of those p'ipa tracks will be for his upcoming "duets with friends" type CD; the rest will be up for consideration for our long overdue 2nd CD.

I've also been working on some instrument construction, most succesfully with a (finally) growing set of tubular bells.

I have more to say, but I'm thinking it would do well as a seperate post, hopefully in the next day or two. (Stop laughing.) So until then....

A Multi-Part Post In JIVE Format

By Any Other Name

The other night for inspiration I turned, as I have so many times in the past, to a book given to me by the late, great Tom Shannon. It is full of knowledge, history and truth; in times of low mood it will help pick me up. Its message is both thought-provoking and profound.

I am of course referring to the Dictionary of Slang and Euphemism. It delivers all it claims on the cover, where it proudly announces that it encompasses: oaths; curses; insults; ethnic slurs; sexual slang and metaphor; drug talk; college lingo; and related matters. New worlds may thus open for the reader.

I will frequently pick it up and open it at random, many, many times before I am ready to put it down. Often I will find myself skipping to some recommended corrolary term (foaming beef probe: the penis in an act of copulation. For synonyms, see YARD).The lists of synonyms are not always where you might expect them, but once found, will probably hold your attention for a while.

The prize for favorite discovery of the previous evening goes to: canyon yodeling. By the sound of it, this could be a reference to several things, among them chundering (AKA the technicolor yawn); but in fact it lies squarely in the province of my dear friend muffy diver, the cunning linguist.

Slang And Euphemism is by Richard A. Spears and is highly recommended.

Meanwhile....

"Daddy, Play...'Roar!'"

So says Lulu when she requests that I play her "Adventures Of Forever and Nowhere". The first time she did it, I was very surprised and definitely moved. Why be moved by my 2 year old's request to hear my music? Because she really does have her own taste, regardless of her age. She knows what she wants to hear, and if you don't play it, she complains. She hasn't taken to "Rivers", even though I played that for her first. She seems to prefer the more rock-oriented stuff. It also probably doesn't hurt that there's a dinosaur on the cover.

She's recently been introduced to early Bee Gees, ('67-'69), and requests that pretty frequently. I'm surprised she liked it, so much of it is minor key and sad-sounding.

But the big surprise for me, as far as music not made by her daddy, was Ginger Baker's Air Force. Or, more specifically, "Aiko Biaye", which she calls "Gobi Yayay!". She's been requesting it a lot lately.

That's my girl!

Dementia 13 And Other Recurring Themes

The other night I was taking Lulu up to bed after tub time, and Chrissy called me into our bedroom to see what was on TV. She said, "Do you know what this is?" I smiled and said "Of course", because I recognized "Dementia 13" immediately. After I got Lulu down to bed, Chrissy and I watched the last 5 or so minutes. What a great film. Decapitation, girl hung on a meat hook...what can I say? Ya gotta love it. When Chrissy was in nursing school, she had to take a unit of Psych, and for her term paper she analyzed this film, after we'd watched it together. The paper went over well. Yet another place for this movie to slide neatly into my life. I can remember seeing parts of it at least twice when I was four; once when I had the flu and was pretty much incapacitated, and left to watch TV in the tiny bedroom I shared with my parents; and again in that same room in the middle of the night. That time I was asleep on my little folding cot when I was awakened by the noise of my parents fooling around. As usual, the TV was on- it usually was, day or night, and I'd learned to sleep through it, probably from the time I was brought home from the hospital. That particular night, I was awakened by my parents making what sounded like distressed sounds, and it scared me. I asked what was wrong and was told, in between laughs and annoyed sighs, that nothing was wrong, I should go back to sleep. No, those sounds weren't bad things, mommy and daddy were fine. So as I'm trying to fall back asleep- or more accurately, look like I've fallen asleep without really doing so, so I could hear more- "Dementia 13" comes on, with that creepy harpsichord music and the sound of the drowning radio. Now there was no way I was getting back to sleep, and not even much chance of faking it. I knew what the movie was, and I was both spooked by the sound of it and absolutely drawn to watch it again. So much for keeping my eyes closed. One of my parents noticed my eyes were open and they demanded to know why I was still awake. I said it was the TV, which was at least partially true, if not terribly accurate. Yeah, it was the TV, because I wanted to watch it. I told them they could leave it on, it wouldn't bother me, but my mom then insisted on turning it off. I think I killed their mood, and I seem to recall a later advance in the dark by my dad being rebuffed by my mom, who insisted they should just go sleep. But instead, the TV went back on. I snuck more peeks at the movie, when I could. "Little fishy in the brook...Papa's caught you on a hook..."

It's funny that around that same age was when I had my introduction to "Carnival of Souls", which also has popped up repeatedly in my life. Most importantly, it was the date/makeout movie at the place I lived, the night I hooked up with Chrissy, and Steve Shaw hooked up with Kate, who was the mutual friend of Chrissy's and Emily's who provided the all-important link. Emily was then with a fellow named Mark, who was also there, and soon enough no one was watching the movie. We might as well have all been teenagers instead of 30-somethings. Unlike teenagers, the two on the rental agreement had seperate rooms to go to, so all three couples had space to explore possibilities (Steve and Kate got the living room). The rest of course is history: Steve and Kate got married, as did Chrissy and I. Emily moved on and is also happily married today. And we owe it all to quality low budget horror. Well maybe not all of it, but it definitely didn't hurt things.

The Strange Unconscious Strikes Again

Had a bizarre dream last night; told it to Chrissy and she suggested I make it into a blog update, which I thought was a great idea. What's more, she handed me a notebook and said "Here, write down some notes so you don't lose it". And she did this right at the beginning of breakfast! Let's hear it for pro-active support!

So....I'm in a large music store with Mark, and we're looking around the drums and percussion section. Mark picks out something he's going to buy- I can't remember what- and suddenly the sales in the store pick up, it creates a buzz and now everyone feels they ought to buy something. It's even said by someone, can't recall if it's a customer or one of the sales people, "When Mark buys, everybody buys!" It's said with admiration and excitement. (Non-dreamtime Mark will no doubt be very amused to hear this.)

I go over to a section with all kinds of exotic percussion, and go straight to a set of interesting looking brass hanging wind-type chimes. It has two plates that are cut out in a sort of floppy triangle shape, a bit like the profile of a lemon meringue pie; one is bigger than the other and they hang in series, smaller one below the bigger one, not touching. (Wake-world Mark actually had something made by Ufip that looked something like this, back in the Paper Bag days.) Paired with these, hanging to the left, are a series of plates set up like shingles, all of them irregularly shaped. I take a stick and hit the pie-shaped ones, and they have kind of a bell-like sound. I hit the shingles and they sound trashy. I like both types of sounds, but in this case I'm not immediately impressed. Neither of the paired sets are particularly vibrant- the bells not ringing enough, the shingles not trashy enough. It's just not grabbing me. My inner money manager thinks: no, can't see spending money on these, not dramatic sounding enough to consider. Then I get a little devil's advocate voice in my head saying, give it a chance, maybe it's supposed to be more subtle, and so I start striking at them again. This time there's a sense of something unusual happening; the bell-like sounds are starting to become vibrant and swirling, and I can almost see the sounds swirling around the chimes like little balls of light. The bell sounds and the trash sounds are starting to interact in interesting patterns, weaving a nicely evolving sonic picture.

Just as it's starting to get really interesting, I notice that the strings that have held the whole assembly suspended have gotten tangled up, and I figured I'd better straighten them up before moving on to check out other pieces. I flip them over while trying to decipher which string needs to unwrapped from where, and I notice that on the back, there's a thick, quarter-sized wad of what looks like a cross between bearing grease and old earwax stuck to the back. I'm not sure what it's doing there but it annoys me enough to even see it that I poke at it a little to see if it comes off easily.

The wad softens up almost immediately with my touch, and seems to grow, and more startling, appears to be alive! It seems to be responding to my circular rubbing motion, and to be aroused. Little eyes and mouth form on it and show a face caught up in intense arousal, almost furious and savage.

Needless to say, I'm shocked by this and stop rubbing so I can assess the situation. The little face glares at me harshly and desperately, as if to say "No, no, don't stop now!". I'm even more taken aback by this. But almost as soon as that's happened, the eyes close, the creature appears to die, and the whole mobile sags and becomes like lifeless grey ashy foil, brittle and ultra thin and ready to fall apart. The whole appearance of it as a robust metal percussion instrument is gone.

I am now confused and worried, because whatever it was, I've destroyed it, and will I have to pay for it?

A salesperson sees what's just happened and yells, "We've lost another one!". The manager comes over to see, and I try to object. Why didn't they have some kind of a sign up about it, warning customers how to handle it, or not to touch it at all? I say, sorry, I had no idea it was alive, much less any idea that it was so fragile. He says "It's OK, don't worry about, it happens, we won't hold you responsible. We'll take care of it."

"Yeah, I certainly didn't mean to kill it. It died so quickly. It was weird, it was like it was horny."

"Oh yeah, once you activate it, it's got a short lifecycle and it needs to mate right away, then it dies."

"It creeped me out, it glared at me when I stopped."

"Sure, it only gets to do this once, and you stopped in the middle! You'd die angry too!"He laughed a little.

At this point I woke up, and the dream drifted away as my daughter's waking calls from the other room brought me to consciousness. I got into the morning routine and forgot all about this, until breakfast.

After I'd written my notes down, several things occurred to me. One, I could see a purpose for this creature on the back of the supposed chime. It gave an enhanced version of the sound of the instrument it was supposed to be, one that could operate directly on the listener's mind. It would pull you in and then give you enough psychic suggestions to get you to stimulate it. I never did figure out how things were supposed to work from there, but I imagine I'd have found out had I not stopped. Would it have given birth to additional instruments? As for the shop staff, they were probably keeping quiet about the actual nature of what they were selling and figured that the little critter would snag a lot of customers without their knowing how it had happened. I also figured that the particular one that I'd checked out had perhaps been sitting there too long, and needed to fulfill its life cycle, and so pulled me in all the way. If it had been more "fresh", it might not have pushed things along so quickly, and I'd have bought it and had it at home for a while before getting sucked in and induced to help it mate and die (and so, become useless as an instrument). No doubt these things were sold "as is, no returns".

The second thing that occurred to me was that I'd just recently read a Philip K. Dick story, and that this was very much in the character his work. One of his most common plot elements is the masquerading of living, sentient beings as objects. So...Not too far of a stretch to see where that part comes from. But I do wonder why it surfaced as erotic percussion! Very odd. The circular rubbing motion is self-explanatory to anyone with experience; the disgusting appearance of the creature is totally at odds with my feelings towards (human) female genitalia, which are highly favorable, I am a long-time fan. The orange-brown earwax/bearing grease appearance has nothing to do with any kind of genitalia I'm familiar with, and in fact the only orifice that comes to mind is indeed the ear. Considering it's masquerading as a musical instrument, this sort of fits.

And there is a recent event which corresponds to this. When Chrissy's Dad was in town, we played him Atom Heart Mother and Meddle. After he left, I was looking at the cover of Meddle, which, thanks to living in a slightly less uptight age, had been restored in the US to its original UK cover, which is a picture of an ear, tinted green and orange. Someone at Floyd's label at the time of the original release found the image to be too sexual and insisted it be changed, which is how we ended up with the pink and blue rippled picture familiar to US buyers. So...there's a suggestion of erotic ear-ness.

An odd, but not unusually odd, by-product of my unconscious. It probably means something, but I'm not quite sure what yet, and I may never know. But it's amusing to speculate. Just thought I'd share.

GS, 4/3/10

So what do you do?

Anybody who's had the good fortune to read Bill Bruford's autobiography has discovered what to me, at least, is a shocking fact: you can be a legendary player and still get that question, followed by confusion or disbelief at the answer. He offers these as a couple of his favorite follow-up questions: "Yes, but what do you really do?"; "But what do you do during the day?" This is reassuring to the rest of us, if we choose to see the glass as half-full; you can have really made it and still encounter this. It can be equally disheartening if we haven't had enough sleep, are of a generally downcast state of mind, are cynical to the point of disfunction and low-grade insanity, etc. I myself have had this conversation more times than I care to remember, always coming away from the encounter in a worse headspace.

"So, what do you do?"

I used to attempt to have fun with this otherwise grotesque business of having to explain myself. "What do you do?" "Oh", I'd say cheerfully, "I'm a professional dilletante". Sometimes people would be quiet, not wanting to let on that they didn't know what a dilletante was. Sometimes there'd be a nervous laugh as they wondered what other meaning or slang there was for the term. Male escort? Euphemism for a fancy caterer or some kind of semi-legal courier? Was it anything like a liason? "Oh....eh....uh...do you enjoy it?" "Oh yes, it's fun."

But eventually the truth would come out.

"I'm a musician."

"Oh, what do you play?"

OK, everybody who knows me knows we've just arrived at problem #1. If I start listing instruments, I come off like a braggart, which I can do without. I eventually came up with something that usually only leads to one more explanatory question in response. At least to that one question, then there's more. Like this:

(what do you play)

"Anything I can get my hands on."

"Oh, (chuckle chuckle, confused grin, was that a double-entendre, etc.), "So like, drums, guitar, sax...?"

"Yeah, mostly drums and guitar, but whatever else is necessary."

"So... do you do sessions, play clubs, are you in a band...?"

At the sound of the tone, turn the page to arrive at problem #2! DING!

Here we are at an answer requiring a history, the upshot of which will be a general all-purpose "No". Yes to all of them at one time, especially the latter two. No to all of them now.

"I make my own music and sell the CDs on the internet." Thank Jah for the internet, that catch-all of confusion where anything is probable, if not actually possible.

"Oh, so you play all the instruments?"

"Yeah."

"So you actually make enough to make a living?"

Ugh. This one used to trip me up, but finally I learned to say, with little smile, "I get by".

If anyone has maintained interest to this point, the next logical question they'll ask is: "So what kind of music do you play?"

Double ugh. Again, anyone who knows me knows that's not an easy question to answer. Unless the questioner is unusually well-versed in musical genres, my answer will leave yet another individual trout-faced and attempting to maintain. "Well, it's sort of like a cross between progressive rock, hard rock, jazz and world music, but with a lot of classical avante-garde influence, and electronic stuff, like musique concrete." Even well-versed people will be wondering what the hell that particular blend could possibly sound like. Lately I've had the thought that I should just make up some terms, and if they don't satisfy, make up some more, and just keep going until the inquirer gives up.

"Well, it's kind of a blend of Harminozetshky and Portamentico."

"I, uh...I don't think I know those. What, uh, what bands?"

"Well, it's kind of like a cross between Harold Clam and old Hairpie Mayonnaise."

"Hairpie Mayonnaise?"

"Old Hairpie Mayonnaise, before they got too commercial. Like, the first four albums."

"Oh...uh...No, sorry, don't know 'em."

That's if your questioner is honest and actually interested, otherwise you may get "Oh wow, that's great. Listen, I see some pork rinds over there, would you excuse me?"