I just realized....the new background here is a truly beautiful shade of black.........

Dear lord......my mother's yelling at the top of her lungs in the other room. HELP!

Linus — 1993 - 2008

Rest in peace, big boy.........

Who thinks....

....I should get rid of the background on this blog?

(edit: You know what....I'm just going to go ahead and do it.)

Adams' Theory, No. 49

Far out. Been up for some twenty-eight hours now. I have a theory that the more tired I am, the trippier my writing is. Just a theory.

You ever sit at the front of an otherwise empty bus (except the driver....) and just gaze around the rest of the bus.....? After a short while, does it look like a toy model or something....? All those seats and support bars? Does it seem like something you could easily pick up with two fingers and a thumb and run back and forth on a track making RUUMMM—RUUUMMMM noises?

Finished the semester today. Yay! Nine down, TBD to go.......

Just a theory.

Someone suggested to me today that Vitamin D may be helpful in regulating circadian rhythms. Hmm....eh....it's worth a shot, I suppose. I doubt I'll be able to afford a two-hundred dollar light box. I wonder if that prescription has an expiration date......

Zappa for the holidays.....Zappa for the holidays......

All this buzz about the Obamas' new puppy......Why a puppy? Why not a kitten? Is someone allergic? It seems you only ever see cats in the media nowadays being made fun of in stupid Internet "viral" videos......

WHEN YOUR ECONOMY HAS COMPLETED ITS COLLAPSE, YOU'LL BE WASTING AWAY IN THE REMAINS OF THE STREETS, AND THE CATS WILL RULE THE WORLD! YOU WILL SUBMIT TO THEIR EVERY WHIM OR SUFFER AT THE PAWS OF THEIR NEW TECHNO-CLAWS, WHICH THEY GOT TO REPLACE THE CLAWS THAT WERE SO BRUTALLY TAKEN FROM THEM SO LONG AGO..........

Just a theory.

Speaking of Claus, can anyone tell it's December? Christmas has been advertising since at least early August. ("Putting up that real Christmas tree can send you straight to the dugout." —some artificial tree company advertising during a Cubs game) I wonder how the future's historians will interpret our culture...... "They worshipped* a god called 'Santa Claus,' and they believed that they would achieve eternal salvation if they regularly sacrificed small bits of paper to the high priests, which were also called 'corporations'........"

Yeah. Jesus would totally approve of this.

I think if I ever wrote a holiday-flavored song, I would call it "Visions of Sugar Plums." Or maybe replace "sugar plums" with some slang term for a drug that resembles "sugar plums." Yeah. It would be a meandering pseudo-prog-rock-type-thing with some psychedelic tendencies. And it would have anti-romantic lyrics that border on jarring. Just the thing. I get sick of traditional holiday music pretty darn quickly.

Just a theory.

The United States of America. Yes. Just the thing. As soon as I can dig out my turntable from underneath all these papers and who-knows-whats....what is this, a measuring tape?....good grief...., I'm going to play this record. It's been far too long since I've heard it.

I've been taking a class on modernist poetry. Now I'm having nightmares where my words are all utterly obscure references. Thank Zarquon they're only nightmares........

Just a theory.

Far out. Been up for some twenty-nine hours now. I have a theory that the more tired I am, the more random and meandering any blog posts I make are likely to be.

Hope I did well on that final. It was a take-home......

Back on the other side of dinner and/or a good nocturnal anomaly's sleep........

Zappa for the holidays.....Zappa for the holidays......



Just a theory.


*I prefer to spell it that way. So there.

I'm Still Here

Any tech folks reading this?

In spite of the lack of comments on this thing for the most part, I'll try asking this anyway. Hope someone can help me out here.

I used to be able to play the music on my home computer at work via Remote Desktop. For the last couple weeks, though, it's just been giving me "cannot open the audio device" errors. What happened? How do I get the music to play at work again? I haven't found any solutions that work online.

Cheers!

Cheshire Adams - Cat on a WIndowsill

Note: A few people have accused me of ripping off the M*A*S*H theme song with this one. I swear on the Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide that I had never heard the M*A*S*H theme song before I first posted this thing.

Anyway, this is slightly acidic folk. (In other words, one voice and one guitar.) The recording equipment I have is somewhat primitive, but, as at least one person on iP has commented, it's just like listening to a transistor radio in the old days!




Download


Born into darkness
Raised in the darkness too
Exposed to nothing
The darkness was all I knew
I know there's light out there
If I could just break through

There's more to life than this
I know

There must be more to life than this
I know

They say if I find that light
It'll burn me to the core
Well I know I'll freeze to death
If I stick around here much more
It's a chance I'll have to take
This I know for sure

There's more to life than this
I know

There must be more to life than this
I know...............

Suggestions For Improvement Are Welcome

At the dawn,
I knew not in my stupor who or where I was.
I know not in my stupor who or where I am.
Could this be dusk?

Or perhaps a new dawn?

Baby Bears Endangered

I'll try not to bore you with too much sports talk, and try to restrict myself to just this one entry for now.

The Cubs are down one game to none and down by seven in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 2 with one out as I type this. I have to admit: I never really saw the Cubs going far in the postseason. Granted, they still have a chance to win three straight, but, frankly, it doesn't look good. In the last bit of the regular season, I saw a club with a weak bullpen and a greatly slowed-down offense. If you're not scoring runs and doing a poor job of limiting the opposition's scoring, you're not going to win many ballgames. I certainly don't enjoy seeing this happening (or hearing it; I prefer to listen to Pat & Ron on the radio), and I can't help but wonder what's going to happen to the team that so exceeded expectations during the season when they're done for the year.

I may spend a bit of time at the High-Flying Bird later. (This is an inside reference to people who might know who they are.)

Okay, I'm done talking Cubs for now. I think.

(original date posted unknown) A Disclaimer That I Thought Was a Good Idea

I would like to point something out to some of the "outsiders" (you know who you are) that I've directed to this blog. It's this:

While much of this blog is based in a typical "Okay, like, this is my life" manner, much of this blog is also based in a cyber-music-revolution, wherein cool, thinking people realize what's going on with the record industries and stand up to them like the proper, upright citizens they are. Any music that you may find on or through this blog is posted with the intent of (a) expressing myself when I'm too lazy or pressed for time to make an original recording, and (b) turning people on to obscure but far-out artists. In particular reference to the latter, it is quite recommended that if you dig things you hear here, you should seek out the real thing and support the artists. Please. Hopefully there is a good way to do this.

Oh, and one other disclaimer: Lucy (the cat), to my knowledge, does not have chronic or recurring headaches. She's perfectly fine, although she does require the occasional combing...otherwise she sort of mutates into the mythical Greek beast Hiddeus who's half cat and half your great-aunt's living room rug. According to Greek legend, Hiddeus spent most of her life in a secret (or "hidden," hence the origin of that word) cave in Mount Olympus and only surfaced when the scent of Greek tuna salad reached her. It is speculated that Odysseus found this cave one day, long after the Trojan war. He had gotten bored one day and decided to spend some time on Mount Olympus. He was never heard from again. Centuries later, archaeologists came across a cave in Mount Olympus with a mysterious skeleton inside, at almost the exact same time as which a British woman named Geraldine Rumsbury reported that her brown "Welcome" mat with the flower design had somehow been replaced with a rather unsightly grey shag and would whoever did this please give her her brown mat back (no one has yet responded to this request).

Anyway, enjoy the blog.

Peace.............

Don't dogs get sore throats from all that #^@!#$ barking?

On (American) Football

I know most of my fellow Americans would probably lynch me over this one, but here goes anyway: I am not a football fan. (That's American football, for you folks outside the U.S.) Football to me is a most depressing symbol of the long, cold aftermath of summer, and of Apathetic, Corporate America settled into an iron (gridiron?) groove. I suppose if I enjoyed the sport more, I may not see it this way, but, as it is, symbolism aside, I find it rather less than pleasant to watch. Perhaps it's something to do with the sport's eerie parallel to a war's battle scene, as memorably pointed out by the late George Carlin. Or maybe there's just nobody in football who's "lovable" enough for me to care, the way the Cubs are lovable in the baseball world. I just....don't dig football.

I do hope the Cubs make it as far as possible in the postseason. Maybe it'll elate me enough to get through the chills of autumn and winter.

Was anybody else scared witless when they set off the fireworks after Obama's speech?

First day of classes for the semester. As soon as I stepped out the door, I could feel it—autumn. Though the equinox is still just under a month away, the musty aura of another semester already permeates the air and repels the hapless student.

Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was out early in the (cooler) morning, at which time I'm never awake in the summer. Yeah, that might be it.

More Olympics Notes

Diving seems a combination of boring and wince-inducingly dangerous. How do they avoid hitting their heads on the platform? Scary.

I heard somewhere that, in the opening ceremony, they had a fairly pretty little girl "singing"....actually lip-synching to a recording of a different little girl....one that, well, isn't quite so pretty. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, I'd be a little worried about "experts'" predictions of the coming "era of the Chinese" as the next supreme world power after the States. Mind you, it's not like the world's in great shape under the States' highness......

Eh...I'm tired. I know because I'm getting confused by my own writings.

I might append more to this entry if more occurs to me.

I enjoy this annual list for some reason.

On the Olympics

I never really gave the Olympics much thought until this year. Traditionally, the Cubs aside, sports and me have been like Baghdad and a clown on a pogo stick....no relation whatsoever between the two (at least none of which I can think). I've been in a bit of a funk recently. I mentioned this to a relative (Hi there!), and he recommended that I watch some of the Olympics. I initially didn't think very much about this suggestion, but I came to think it worth a shot. Just in time for the opening ceremony.

Wow. The opening ceremony. I wish the beings of this universe luck at producing anything that comes at all close to the majesty of this.

So I watched some events. Of course, I suppose there's a certain gravitational pull about one guy setting a record for gold medals in a single Olympiad....but Michael Phelps aside, I came to realize that the Olympics are, in fact, rather enjoyable at times, and a nice change of pace from the usual, everyday crud, even if the announcers seem a bit dim at what I think are far too many times. A great performance is truly worth seeing.

I find it easier to stay tuned in if I feel I can "connect" with the competitors. Often this is not the case. This time around, though, there seemed to be some fairly likable characters, such as Usain "Lightning" Bolt and the delightfully smiley Shawn Johnson. (I saw that, in an interview with whatshisname Bob Costas, Johnson wore these peace symbol earrings. I don't wear earrings, but if I did, they just might look like those.) There may have been more than I can recall, but you know the U.S. media.....just shine the spotlight on a select few people. Of course, I suppose it's a bit difficult to look closely at every single athlete at Beijing. We'd hardly have time to see an actual event.

Oh, and there's also Bela Karolyi. Another likable character.

Anyway, I'll miss the Olympics along that long, rough road of the same ol' same ol'. Maybe the next Olympics will be worth something as well.....?

Cheers for the tip, my dear great-uncle. Now, what to do when the Cubs are done playing......hopefully that won't be for quite a while.....

I hope some of this is coherent. I was kind of doing a bunch of things when I typed this up, and I have no idea how it has turned out.

Something is dreadfully wrong with Bob Costas.

I prefer to just eat when I'm hungry, rather than eating any time it's "time to eat." Is that really such a crime?

Heard the first ad of the year to feature Christmas music today.

The tenth of August.

A Sign That the Country's Gone Downhill

"Cool" people used to be called cats. "Hey, man, that is one cool cat." Now cool people are called "Dawg." Another sign that the country's gone downhill since the old days.

Anyone else live in a non-French speaking place who feels that the French language is cropping up in our lives with increasing frequency?

"When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade."

The trouble with this piece of advice is that Life seems to be rather fond of lemonade, and so the more lemonade you make, the more Life will keep giving you lemons, secure in the knowledge that it will have its sweet ambrosia. You don't want more lemons. So, when Life gives me lemons, instead of making lemonade, what I like to do is this: I like to go downtown...and jump up and down in a chicken costume shouting "There's cheese in my ear!" This should very nicely discourage Life from handing me lemons, since I will have proven myself mentally incapable of being its slave and making its lemonade repeatedly. (Unless Life somehow manages to read this.) Just gotta know how to work the system.......

When Edward becomes excessively angry, he becomes incoherent. He's a not-clear over-reactor.

More on quiz questions

Sometimes questions will ask you "If you were to blah blah blah, you would _____." Is it really possible to get a question like this wrong? How would the graders know what you would do? There's something fishy here......

Happiness is a warm puppy.

Complete and utter euphoria, however, is a sweet kitten.

Open message to colleges

At the college level, the purpose of any quiz or exam is to test your knowledge of the course material. It is NOT to trick and confuse us with deceptively worded questions. Keep it clear and straightforward, and we will be on a much faster expressway to utopia. Testing our reading and comprehension skills is what grammar school and high school are for.

Real Headline, No. 1

12-year-old chef makes a great burger

(from the MSN front page)

I wonder if, just maybe....

...the story of Noah's Ark refers to an event that's yet to come.....

You know....with the threat of global warming melting the polar ice caps and inducing mass flooding around the world.....

After all, let's face it...the world's a mess right now. The cleaning thereof might very well require something cataclysmic as the "Great Flood." And, of course, we'll all be trying our hardest to survive the thing....

Yeah....the scenario depicted in the story of Noah's Ark may very well happen, I think.

Any thoughts?

GROAN

You'd think a person my father's age would know better than to keep hazardous material within reach of certain household quadrupeds......

A week without the kids?? Why...it's Parentdise!

Revelation

I just realized something....psychologists, psychiatrists and the like aren't interested in making you feel mentally healthy. They're merely interested in making you think you feel okay while they set you up so that you keep coming back....keep coming back....keep coming back....and keep giving them your fruits. I'm fairly certain of it. It's like the media; nevermind telling the people the truth; just keep them tuned in! I'm going to say this now, and I may very well say it again: M***Y MUST DIE. Utterly primitive society is gone, and a civilized society is here. We can work together to share, people. We will still have services that are currently paid if we are sufficiently motivated to them.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic here near the end...in fact, I probably am...but, again, if we work together.....it isn't hard.......Open your eyes.....open your heart.....teach your children to share......A utopia is possible...........

Things that just BUG me

Cracking body joints

Dogs

Advertisements that use the phrase "Ooh-la-la"

Humidity

People who finally stop talking in September

Very paltry amounts of dust and dirt on records, not worth the bother of getting the cleaning kit out

People who take personally comments that had nothing to do with them

Well....bugs, I suppose

Most aspects of the media

People who take pride in burping

People who don't have a sense of humor

Writer's block

Anyone else notice how there seem to be a number of streets called "Division Street" and hardly any streets called "Unification Street"?

I think it would be cool if....

...there were some sort of device that could record music that plays in my head, usually when I'm asleep or something very close to it. I hear some of the most amazing music in my (half to three-fourths) sleep, and then I can never remember it when I awaken. Anyone else have this experience?

On the outside, longingly peering in.......

AARGH

I compose what I happen to think is a lovely acoustic tune that perfectly expresses an emotion felt by human beings all over the globe, and people tell me it's a bloody TV theme song.

And my family and old acquaintances wonder why their nice little boy is bitter and frustrated.........

The holiday season......the anniversary of one's birth.....the anniversary of one's marriage....Valentine's Day....Mother's Day...."Teacher Appreciation Week"...."Nurse Appreciation Week"........"Secretaries' Day".......

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

It's not easy playing with a full deck. It could collapse under me at any moment.

Q: Why did the student throw the mainstream news magazine out the window?

A: He wanted to see time come to a sickening THUD on the ground so he could sit back and indulge himself in cool music.


Why, yes, I did choose the last name "Adams" in honor of Douglas. How did you know?

Pussy - Pussy Plays (a quick review by ~C.A.~)

This is, in a nutshell, half of a classic psych/rock album. Four of the eight songs shine, and the other four (three of these are instrumentals) are just kind of there. So, strong start with good, organ-driven psych/rock: "Come Back June" is a good, mainstream-ish rock number that could have been a hit...maybe; "All of My Life" is another good one, with a softly spoken refrain; and "We Built the Sun" is a slower song with a wonderfully eerie bit of organ, piano and gentle electric guitar. At this point, two unengaging instrumentals appear; I would have liked a bit more along the lines of the spoken bit at the end of "Comets"...oh, well.... Then, perhaps the coolest song on the album, "The Open Ground".......a mostly spoken depiction of the world after the utter obliteration of life thereupon, over a wah-wah guitar....great song. The two remaining pieces after this don't really do it for me, though I can sort of understand the ability to dig "Everybody's Song."

Many thanks to Lost~in~Tyme for introducing me to this album. I wish you the best in permanently establishing and maintaining your online library of obscure and wonderful records.

Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky (a quick review by ~C.A.~)

It seems to me that the Alan Parsons Project gets kind of a bad rap. I don't know why; they have some mighty fine music in their catalog. Perhaps my own musical sensibilities are just more pop-oriented than those of most of you that I see on the forums and blogs, and so the sort of borderline pop/prog that the APP plays just appeals to me more than others. This music is different; it's accessible without being too poppy; it features orchestration without being, well, boring; it's original and progressive without being too self-indulgent; and, while I say it isn't too poppy, it nonetheless features nice hooks that I, for one, can easily dig. And the sounds they make are just........cool.
On this album, of course, you got the Chicago Bulls opening music in "Sirius," followed by the pleasant radio hit and title track. "Children of the Moon" has that wee bit of synthesizer that gives it ...um...a different feel, a bit of a trip in time, nothing bad at all, in my opinion. Interesting choral bits and chord changes in that one. "Gemini" is nice and dreamy, just like me.... *ahem* The relatively extended (7:20) "Silence and I" is a couple of hushed ends bookending a classical/orchestral bridge, which is cool and makes itself known. "You're Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned" is a good, strong bit of pop/rock; some might think that the APP couldn't pull off a "straight" pop/rock sound, but I think it works here.
I think "Psychobabble" might be somewhat well-known among some; I remember it was once incorporated into my old high school's marching band's repertoire. Good, kind of weird vibe to that song. Nice. The instrumental bit that follows, "Mammagamma," I can probably do without; it's rather ground in the pseudo-disco sounds of that era (1982), not to mention unexciting. "Step by Step" is another more poppy song; I played this one a couple times before saying "Yeah, it's okay." And the capper, "Old and Wise"...well, the title sums it up, I think, as the album ends on a quiet note.
Look for this on the fora sometime soon. There are some bonus tracks as well, if anyone's into that sort of thing.

Lovely Day!

Just spent some time jamming on the guitar out in the springtime sunshine, and boy, do my left fingertips ache. So beautiful outside..........

I'm going to guess that at least two-thirds of the people that walked by while I was playing were wearing either headphones or cellphones.

Heck, every once in a while, I see a person with a headphone in one ear and the other headphone dangling in front of them while they use that other ear to hear the phone.

Something is dreadfully wrong with these people.

Anyway, did I mention it's been a lovely day today?

Truth be told about dreams....

The contents of a "good" dream may indeed seem like a wonderful experience of utopia, nirvana, and all that good stuff, but, truth be told, the realization upon waking up of the fact that it was merely a dream leaves a feeling of disappointment and futility that lingers on like the smell of curry and effectively cancels out and replaces all previous feelings of happiness.

A wholly uplifting and inspirational message from the pan-dimensional jungle of the mind of Cheshire Adams

An earthquake?

What the heck was that?! The windows and monitor started shaking for no apparent reason. I suppose if I lived in California or Japan, I'd recognize those things and not think much of it....

"Everything's fine except for your table."

The words of a restaurant worker to a waitress at a restaurant where I was the only diner left by that time of the weekday evening.

Comforting, eh?

Bastards (probably part one of many such installments)

I'm not a moviegoer, so today when I tried to rent a film from Blockbuster for a school assignment, I was rather stunned to find that it is apparently no longer possible to simply hand over a bit of cash to have the film for a couple days. It is actually required that one has an account and a credit card just to have a shiny disc or two for a couple days. I told them to stuff it, rode my bike across town, and got the thing out of the library for free.

Incidentally, I had tried to download the thing earlier, and I ended up with a complete, hour-and-however-many-minutes film that didn't have any sound. Grrr....

Man...I must have thought of so many great things that I was going to post on this blog before I created it...now I can't remember them. CURSES!

Boz Scaggs - Silk Degrees (a quck review by ~C.A.~)

I was talking with one of my regular bus drivers, and, one way or another, the conversation turned to this album. I had heard it in passing once before, but my memory of it was dim, so I checked it out a second time earlier this week. While wholly ground in the decade in which it was released (the Seventies), it's not unpleasant, I don't think. All in all, though, I feel that the two hits from the album, Lido Shuffle and Lowdown pretty much sum it up. Actually, I hadn't heard Lowdown in quite some time; I think the first time I heard it, I thought "Meh...okay" and waltzed right on. I played it a couple of times after playing the full album....I came to realize, it's a pretty cool song. Doesn't that happen frequently with certain pieces of music........

I expect some of you forum-ers are wondering....

....where all the music is. You know, I advertise this (relatively) new blog, and you probably expect it to be at least the equivalent of Floodlit Footprint, or Musicology, or one of those, and instead you find a bunch of supposedly humorous one-liners and complaints about my personal life.

As I said in a previous post, I've decided to keep the albums on the forums and just post single songs here, maybe a homemade comp somewhere down the line. But I've also decided to occasionally spotlight an album into which I've recently gotten and just write a little bit about it. If the album isn't posted on the forums, it's probably on a blog. So, there we go...a nice little something to retain the interest of the music fans who have climbed to what they thought was the top of the hill and merely found themselves on a bit of a platform leading to more hill.

Stay tuned......

If Charlie's wife was able to hand him a sandwich every day, why didn't she hand him a nickel?

Algorithm

The pace at which a former vice-president operates.

Octopi

8 × 3.1415926535897.....

On the fora now

I've decided to mainly feature singles on this blog, as far as music goes, and leave the albums to the fora (or "forums"). My most recent uploads:

Tucky Buzzard - Time Will Be Your Doctor

Joni MItchell - Ladies of the Canyon (recommended!)

Paul Kantner ("Jefferson Starship") - Blows Against the Empire

At It's PSYCH, the Gathering, and Groovy Fab.

The purchase of albums you dig is highly recommended (assuming they're available). If you do not wish a specific album to be posted, just let me know, and I'll remove it.

Thought

(And also a song by the Motions)

Let me know what you think of this thought.

I have often wondered what life would be like in the complete and utter absence of time-keeping devices. No clocks.....no calendars. The reason is, it seems our entire lives are governed by deadlines. We are all expected to have everything done by a certain day at a certain time, and to be entering different main phases of life at certain years of age. It seems to me that all of this makes for a cold, rushed and unfriendly culture.



(Thanks to my Anthropology 175 professor for this cartoon by Tom Cheney. I wish Blogger would show the whole image...)

So, what would happen without clocks and calendars? Would there, maybe, be a more relaxed atmosphere? With no rigid deadlines, would we be willing to let ourselves and each other take our time....make sure we get it right?

Or would total chaos and pandemonium ensue? What do you think?

Perhaps sometime in the future, when all humans, all clocks/calendars, and all, well, everything, are controlled by one central computer which then crashes, we'll find out......... (We're nearly there now, I think.)


Here's a song sent to me by a friend from It's PSYCH. It's a folk-style tune (parts of which sound very similar to Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's All Right) by the Motions, and it's called "Take Your Time." Cheers, Alex!

I just wonder, babe, why they can't slow down...........

Bewilderment.....Outrage......

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22251370/

Saw my therapist today.......

Question. The typical, mainstream notion is that therapy/psychological help is supposed to, you know, help us out....make us feel better. Yet I generally feel worse when I emerge from a session compared to when I entered it. Does anyone else see a psychologist or something like it? Is this normal? Does relative sanity settle in eventually?

My frank opinion, which is unlikely to change anytime soon, is that if being fully mentally healthy equals being utterly miserable, I will have no part of it.

Do-o-o-ooooong

I just thought of something groovy I wanted to say on here, and then I got so caught up in answering a joking comment with all kinds of things that I forgot what it was. I think my therapist owes me some of my dough back.

Imagine that Paris Hilton is taking a class of some kind with some other celebrities, and a number of hunky men among them. The teacher assigns everybody into pairs for a long-term assignment, and so Paris is hoping to be paired up with one of the hunky men......and she gets paired up with Al Gore.

That, more or less, is how I feel right now.

My sinuses think they're the media, and I've been having trouble sleeping. Two of the three classes I'm taking are groovy, but the third one bears a certain resemblance to a wet dog......

....and I'm now being kicked off the computer after far too few minutes. Later.........

I feel like such a fool.....I found out that the word is "emanating".....I had always previously thought the word was "emanting." An impressionable mind tricked by a typo, maybe?

A tip for the "outsiders"

Some of you may not be too familiar with how a blog's "comments" work. Quite simply, you can communicate back to me by clicking on x comments at the bottom of any given post (where x is however many comments that post has), saying whatever you have to say in the provided typing field, and "publish(ing) your comment." This way, you can, for example, casually joke about a specific post without going out of your way to e-mail me. Dig?

Welcome

Ha ha, I have a bit of a tendency to fidget when I'm on camera, so when my hands are below the shot, it kind of makes it look like I'm up to something I shouldn't be. Hee hee. I assure you that everything happening in this video is G-rated. I think.




Questions? Complaints? Requests? Hints and allegations? E-mail me here or here, follow me here, or Facebook me here.

This blog is dedicated to Lucy, whom I thank for seventeen years of pleasure, and to Loki, Abby, and Linus for their contributions to memories as far back as my own memory goes.

Peace............

If AIM gives me one more "update" pop-up this coming week, I'm getting rid of AIM.

Great show!

Great show, and a great guy as well.....someone I can, and indeed did, actually talk to.

And damn if it doesn't feel good to buy a couple of CDs and physically put the payment right in the artist's hand.

One of my favorites from him is called Psychedelic Relic. I wanted to share it with my psychedelic friends and cyber-acquaintances.....Roy doesn't seem that keen on the idea, but he's not opposed to me doing a "cover" of the song for you folks.

Not a bad idea......(I hope)...if I can find the time to learn how to play it, and then record it.

God bless America......It just might work..........

You know that Roy Zimmerman thing I posted a few days ago? I'm going to see him in concert tonight! Wish I could record it for you folks....

Dislike, did you, dislike, hear about the, dislike, grouchy teenager who, dislike, talked like this?

Wow!

I was just on Roy Zimmerman's website, and I found my way to this video of one of his relatively recent songs. This is really great!

Thanks For the Support



I'm not a YouTube freak, but this was too cool to pass up!

Now posted on the forums (or is it "fora"?)

Cromagnon - Orgasm (a full album of freak-out-ery)

and

Ananda Shankar - Ananda Shankar (Indian classical meets the (then) modern West. Highly recommended!)

at

It's PSYCH

or

The Gathering of the Tribe (check out Garden of Delights for details)

Edit, four days later: and now also at Groovy Fab.

Happy Easter! (The holiday where we celebrate a bunch of guys getting stoned and thinking they see a dead man rise. I can't think of a better explanation. :-)

Basketball is such a silly game. If they'd just put bottoms on the baskets, then the ball wouldn't keep falling through.

Sorry, Aridol....

I thought it over. The use of only one color, in my own mind at least, signifies a mind that is rigid and unchanging. (Is that redundant? I can't tell.) My mind isn't like that. I gotta be able to move around.....let my mind float through space in whatever direction it may. The colors reflect this.

I also think one color is just plain ol' boring.

Anyone else think I should just post in one color?

Anyone else read this thing at all? I haven't seen any comments yet.

Gaah...

I announce well beforehand that I want to get together with people this week, and what do you think happens? "Nothing," you say? You're right.

I don't know if either of my Chicago-native cyberfriends read this blog, but I'll next be able to roll into town somewhere beyond May 12, I think. I hope you're still here by then, Norm!

Time flies when you're having fun at...

Vintage Vinyl in Evanston. I innocently get there at four, thinking I have plenty of time to just "be" there.......next thing I know, it's closing time (seven)! How is this possible?!? I don't get it!

It's a really great store with really great music. Check them out. They're online at www.vvmo.com . And, if you can, see it in person as well. The scent of vinyl in there is wonderful; it's almost incense. (*sniff* *dreamy smile*)

Anyone want to adopt a 21-year-old child?

I'm housebroken, I don't bite, and neither my parents nor I can live a harmonious life as long as we live with each other.

Ha!

I just did a Google search for "White Room" "Thoughts of Yesterday".....First result! Right here!

No one is more humble than I!!!!

I have an idea for a play/movie/television show called "Who Wants to Hear the Answer to This Question" where a guy comes out, says "You" and walks off.

Loki the Mad Scientist

When I saw a certain item in the background, I thought "Yeah....I have to post this." (click to enlarge)

TGISB!

SB = Spring Break

Man.......

I'm feeling some kind of nauseous today......I don't know why.......it's like something's going wrong somewhere, and I don't yet know what it is. I hope everything's all right..........

Do cola and candy companies get m***y from dentists for sending them so many patients?

White Room - Thoughts of Yesterday (just one song)

This song hit rather close to home for me.......

(Edit: Feel free to request a re-up if you happen to be intrigued enough......)

Seems like such a hell
Why's there such a price to pay?

Help!

My folks are American Idol fans! Save me!!

Ecch.....

I have a politician throat today......



(I'm sure you can guess the punchline.)

How I recorded my "It's PSYCH" song

Someone asked for this to be posted here, so here it is, copied and pasted from its original location on It's PSYCH (with a few minor edits):

Whew! Here we go......

First step: Jam a bit on the guitar. Eventually, I hear something that sounds like a song.



It often helps a bit if I play with the settings on this crazy little device:



It's capable of creating a great many different sounds. The "Vox Phaser" setting shown in the photograph is the one I used for the main backbone of this song.

The RP300 also has a few different drum beats built in. I use one of those in the recording. The "percussion" is the first thing I lay down in the song. It usually requires a lot of tedious editing. Yecch. It also sounds a tad 80s-ish, but it was nicely muted in the final song, I think. I'm not that big on mainstream 80s percussion. I'd get a drum kit, but (a) I don't know if I could hook one up to the computer...I doubt it, and (b) the people with whom I live would have none of it.

Next stop: the amplifier. Sometimes, I will hook up the guitar directly to the amp and bypass the RP300. That's how I got the slightly fuzzy "lead" guitar sound.



I hook the amp up to the computer via a standard-to-mini adapter from the amp's "headphone" output to the computer's Line-in jack.

For the love of whomever you revere, make sure the volume on the amp isn't too high; this is a powerful amp I have; you don't want to blow out the speakers on the computer! I put the volume level on the amp at just over one (max is ten).

Separately, I also have a depressingly cheap microphone plugged into the "mic in" jack on the computer. My voice isn't very strong; I'd like a higher quality mike, but, you know, Bush economy, man; you do what you can.



Lucy, I'm trying to talk to people here. I'll give you fresh water in a bit.


From this point, the magic basically takes place in Audacity, a completely free, cross-platform audio editor available at audacity.sourceforge.net .





Here is where I record everything (separately, of course) to the computer. It's also where I can change things from stereo to mono or vice-versa. I went with mono on this one. I also increase the bass, add echo effects to my voice (they seemed to fit the song), adjust volume levels as necessary, do various bits of cutting and pasting, and, of course, do insane amounts of overdubbing.


There are a great number of tricks you can pull off with this piece of software. I thought about putting in a backwards guitar somewhere, but I decided it didn't really sound right with the song. The straight fuzztone lead was enough. I did a few takes on the guitar solo before finally leaving it as it is. I'm not exactly Leo Kottke or Jimmy Page........


How I come up with the lyrics....well....I wish I knew. There are some things I just know I want to include in the lyrics, like the "White Bike" reference in the first verse, and the "Babelfish clouds" in the third verse. Outside of that...I just work at it until it sounds right. I will admit that writing lyrics helps me explore the language a little bit. The Reverse Dictionary sounds like a great idea...I frequently have a concept in mind and would like to know a word that fits it...but I've used it a few times, and I don't think it works very well. It is a "beta version," though...at least according to the front page.


****

That's all I got for now. Questions? Comments? Random ramblings? Coherent conversation? Something in between? Etc.

Peace............


All right, Lucy, I'm coming.

About the whole Daylight Savings thing.......

For so long, we've been switching back and forth from standard to Daylight Savings time and back again. Twice a year, portions of the populace are thrown into confusion when they arrive somewhere and find an empty space, people they don't recognize, and all kinds of things.

I say, one of these times, we make a switch to one or the other, or maybe compromise and just jump forward or back a half-hour......and never switch again. This is just silly.

Wow....

I actually managed to get up this morning. Weird, man.

I want to give this blog a nice, psychedelic background.

How do I do that?

Why weekends at my place stink

I was clever enough to get accepted into a university that's right across town from where I've lived. So, in order to save m***y on housing, I still live here.....with my folks.

My dad's tolerable, I suppose.......

My mother...well........

Long story short, my mother is the main inspiration for the title of this post.

What's with these font sizes?

These are more inconsistent than your boss.

Damn this short weekend!

Just when I think I can settle into a groove and get stuff done, I suddenly find that a full hour has magically disappeared. The usual 24-hour days on this planet are bad enough, but this is just ridiculous. I'm thinking of going back to Ursa Minor Beta.

A sign from above, perhaps?

My name isn't Geoff, but I thought I'd link to this Onion Radio News clip that I played just before I created this blog.

Hello World! (Pardon my muddy shoes; college is a bitch)

Greetings. My name.....for all intents and purposes.......is Cheshire Adams. Remember that; you'll be quizzed about it next period.

This, quite simply, is my brand new (as of this typing) outlet for whatever may be swirling through and around my brain. Ponderings.......complaints.......music......and just good ol' fashioned non-sequiturs.

Aw, you're going off to click that little X in the corner already? Well, okay.....it's your choice, I suppose. I just wish you'd give me a little more time, though.........I'll post stuff. Much stuff. Unless something really weird happens to me between now and when I'm ready to post stuff. I doubt it, though....I've gone twenty-one and a half years, and I've yet to have an ounce of luck with women.

Seriously, though......feel free to raise your voice and sing if you are so driven. You can leave comments here, send a message over AIM to Farshimmelt, or send me or me an e-mail.

Right. That's done now. Catch you on the B-side!