I opened an envelope today and found myself swallowing a low level panic attack because of its contents. It was a check from my employer, and it turned out to be 1/3 of the amount I was hoping for. This triggered my panic reponse, and left me feeling like I couldn’t quite catch my breath. We’re in desperate need of every penny we can get, and simply put we couldn’t afford this.

I’m probably shooting myself in the foot by writing this, because I don’t want to piss anyone off. But I’m sort of looking for a way to head this off at the pass, before I wind up laying in bed with a pillow over my head. The one thing that keeps going through my head is “bad timing, bad timing”. Especially with a massive tree limb laying in the back yard that fell last night (and luckily missed the house). It’s time to buckle down and make some things work, but in the interim I’m having to rely on some other people to keep my head above water, and I don’t like that at all. I keep trying to shake the feeling that we’re one calamity away from total disaster.

As I mentioned when I inquired about the amount of the check that I received today, we have no wiggle room down here at the moment. I’m just hoping and praying that the Universe doesn’t figure that out and decide to say “Oh, there you are!” I feel like I’m scanning the sky for the proverbial meteors again.

This was a good, but ultimately depressing movie. Maybe parts of it hit too close to home. Which, I guess, is what a good movie is supposed to do. In the end, though, I found myself hoping that this couple would just up and go to Paris already. Yes, I wanted the happy ending. But, of course, we can all identify with people who’ve had to compromise their dreams to get by in the world. To some extent, we’ve all done it.

Long story short, this movie is about a couple who view themselves as special and outside of the mainstream. These are people who are meant for great things. These are people who are meant to change the world, or at least affect it. But somewhere down the line, after two children and working dead-end jobs to make ends meet, that sense of self has changed into a suburban nightmare in which one day blends into the next, and years slip away in the blink of an eye.

Sound familiar? If you’re over 40, it should.

In the end, perhaps what made this movie ultimately depressing is how familiar it seemed. While I can’t identify with the pathos these characters lived under, I can certainly feel some familiarity in the mechanics that drive it. So… is this a good movie because of it? I don’t know. But somehow I suspect these characters will haunt my dreams.

4 out of 5 stars

Actually, I tried to give this movie three stars, but my finger just wouldn’t click on it. It wasn’t a bad movie, exactly. It was just one of those mindless comedies. Honestly, I was left feeling like Jim Carrey’s incredible talent was being wasted in a banal movie like this. Still, I think maybe it deserved more than 2 stars. 2 and 1/2? At no point was the movie excruciatingly bad. But that’s not exactly praise, is it? It was cute. That’s all I can say about it.

Personally, I think Jim Carrey suffers from the same thing that Robin Williams does. His talent is so off-the-wall that Hollywood just doesn’t know what to do with him. It’s been a long time since Carrey was in a movie that suited his kinetic talents. I think we can add Yes Man to the pile of movies that didn’t hit the mark.

2 out of 5 stars

I think I liked this movie better than Victoria did. But it wasn’t much more than good, campy fun. I think anybody going into it expecting more than that will be disappointed. This is the kind of movie you watch on a big screen TV through a surround sound system with the volume cranked up. Otherwise, there’s no real point. But I think it fits in well with the other Underworld movies. If you liked the others, you’ll like this one.

There’s not much else I can say about it. This movie fills in the backstory of the other movies. As prequels go, it does its job, filling in some of the blanks about the war between the vampires and werewolves. If that’s your kind of thing, you’ll like this movie. If I have any real complaint, it’s that Rhona Mitra just isn’t the ass-kicker in this movie that Kate Beckinsale was in the others.

3 out of 5 stars

I was posting something about this on Facebook, and realized that I had a lot more to say about it that just the blurb I was putting on the end of the link. I’m not a fan of the RIAA, and personally I think they’re doing a lot more harm than good in the overzealous pursuit of illegal file downloads. But I think most people don’t really understand this issue.

Although I think people lose sight of the fact that when they steal music online, it’s really the artists they’re hurting more than anyone (most musicians are not millionaires by a long shot), I have zero sympathy for the RIAA and their Gestapo tactics. It seems to me the RIAA has done more than anyone else to make piracy popular by ramming through ridiculous cases such as this. While downloading music used to be simply cheap-ass people swiping music they were too cheap to pay for, it’s almost become an act of defiance now. Mostly because of the jack-booted thugs of the RIAA.

So what’s the real problem here? Is it simply that most people have no morals and will rob you blind given a good opportunity (I think that’s a pretty apt description of the average American), or is it a cultural thing? I’ve been amazed by the young people who don’t think twice about downloading and trading music, copying rented DVDs, and generally just taking whatever they want, without ever fearing repercussions or, worse yet, having any moral qualms about stealing these products. But can an organization like the RIAA really intimidate these people into having a conscience?

Admittedly, I’m not the best person to be questioning the morality of those who illegally download music. I might have a hard drive full of mp3’s that were dutifully paid for, but I also have a bunch of high dollar computer programs on another hard drive that most definitely were not. Is it hypocritical of me to bitch about my girlfriend’s daughter copying DVDs and habitually swiping music online, all while I have a few cracked copies of software?

Well, yes. Of course. However I might try to pretend that there’s a moral difference between swiping an over-priced $600 graphics program and paying $1 for a song download, there’s no moral difference. The only difference I see is that there’s no way I could ever afford that $600 software program without using a cracked copy. What bugs me is when relatively affluent people steal music when they could easily afford the $1 download fee.

I guess it seems to me that’s it more wrong, somehow, for a wealthy woman to walk into a supermarket and steal a pack of sandwich meat than it is for a poor, starving woman to do the same.  I suppose the big difference to me in regard to my software versus my girlfriend’s daughter’s music downloads is that I not only know that when my financial means are improved I will purchase a legitimate copy of that cracked software, but I actually am looking forward to it. I’ll use that cracked software because I need it, but I would definitely prefer to have a legitimate copy. My girlfriend’s daughter is in college, training to be an engineer, and works for a company where she makes great money, and yet I doubt that once her income has settled into the $50,000 per year range she’ll ever feel compelled to go back and pay for all that music she’s downloaded.

I keep thinking about something a friend always said, that sort of falls into the “honor among thieves” category. She always said that it wasn’t what you stole, it was who you stole from. Meaning, of course, that the morality of it was shaped by the amount of harm done. So, it would be less wrong to steal a computer from a corporation like IBM than it would be to steal a dime from a homeless person who had, maybe, a dollar to his name. She would have no problem with the former, but major qualms about the latter.

I guess I kind of look at it the same way. When someone swipes over-priced software from the likes of Microsoft and Adobe, they’re swiping digital copies that cost nothing to the corporations in actual goods. And for someone like me, they’re not losing income, because I couldn’t afford to buy their over-priced software anyway. Somehow I have less of a problem with it because I know this software comes from billion dollar corporations. Yes, I know it’s still piracy, but it goes back to the issue of who it is you’re pilfering from.

The biggest problem I have with swiping music is that the musicians are already getting mere peanuts from each download and CD sale. You may think you’re only hurting a record label when you steal music, but you’re also taking money out of the pockets of your favorite artists. While musicians who sign recording contracts sometimes receive signing bonuses up front, for the most part they receive nothing else in way of compensation but royalties from the sale of downloads and CD’s. Remember that artists typically only receive about 25-35 cents in royalties for each CD sold, and much less for downloads. So if you buy a CD from a band with four members, that band gets to split about a quarter between four people. That’s unbelievable. And yet people have no problem with taking even that quarter from them? To my mind, that’s no different then stealing bread from a homeless person who has nothing else to eat.

The problem is that people are basically stupid. They see millionaire rappers strutting out with their necks laden down with bling, and they think every musician in the world lives like that. Sorry. The rich beyotches that you see parading across your television sets represent a fraction of 1% of the working musicians out there (most of whom are barely squeaking by).

I’m sure I’d feel different about the software issue if I knew that programmers didn’t get paid salaries from their corporations, but were instead paid royalties on sales of the software they’d helped write. I’d feel very different about it then. But knowing that those programmers receive their salaries whether or not I swipe that software makes the moral qualms about swiping the software easier to soothe over. But if I download an album of music, I’ve robbed my favorite artist of that income, because they are not receiving a salary. I couldn’t give a damn about the record label. But I care about that artist.

The RIAA could make more headway with this issue if, instead of suing single moms for millions of dollars they know they’ll never collect, they spent those legal fees on advertising campaigns to explain to the general public how the music industry really works, and how people who steal music online are only adding insult to injury to their favorite artists, who have already been screwed over by the recording industry itself. But the RIAA isn’t that smart.

Here’s a direct message to those who steal music online. Don’t tell me “everyone is doing it”. I don’t care. That doesn’t make it right. If you have a problem with giving money to the record labels, fine. Go to your favorite artists’ web sites and purchase their music directly from them, if you can. If you must steal their music, at least have the decency to buy a shirt or a poster from them to make amends. They make far more money on average from merchandise sales than they do from CDs and downloads. In other words, if you must steal bread from a starving, homeless person, at least have the common decency to give them something in return with equal or greater value.

In the end, I think the RIAA seems so desperate because the corporate fat cats are watching their sales figures drop dramatically. Yes, folks. The free lunch is probably coming to an end. I’d like to see a future in which music lovers are directly supporting their favorite artists by buying music and merchandise directly from them, completely eliminating record labels altogether and making the RIAA and its Gestapo tactics a thing of the past. But I’m not foolish enough to believe that when that happens that music piracy will stop.

I’m reminded of a band I was involved with in the early 1980’s. This band put on a series of free concerts in the parking lot at a restaurant in my home town. At the last show the crowd estimate was somewhere around 500 people. Hoping to build upon this, a month or so later this band put on a show at the high school auditorium and charged a small admission fee (about $2, I think). 10-20 people showed up. That, in a nutshell, is a perfect metaphor for downloads. Big crowds show up when they can peruse the buffet for free. But when you charge for it, suddenly your product isn’t worth even a modest fee.

I suppose where this issue is concerned, my sympathies are with the artists. Which they would be. I’m a musician, after all. I have friends who are musicians. I have friends in the music business who have been nominated for industry awards, yet are still driving to their gigs in vans and making ends meet from one week to the next. So yeah, when you steal music from them, you take bread from their table. And they’re the ones least about to absorb the loss.

Fuck the RIAA. Support your favorite artists.

The last time I watched this movie was on VHS tape. It was fun to watch it again after all these years. This isn’t everyone’s thing, I’m sure, but I love animation. This movie has some great, hand-drawn animation (no computer animation here – sorry Pixar fans), and one of the best soundtracks ever. Maybe it’s a relic, but for me it’s a revered relic. Wall-E might be cute, but he’ll never be as cool as the robot on the spaceship who gets laid by the human girl; “I’m afraid I’ll come home and find you screwing the toaster”. Love it!

Not to mention that this movie what is perhaps the greatest movie soundtrack of all time. Black Sabbath. Sammy Hagar. Stevie Nicks. Blue Oyster Cult. Nazareth. Cheap Trick. Grand Funk. Just to name a few. Hell, I still listen to the soundtrack CD just because it’s a damned find playlist unto itself.

I disagree with those who say that the animation is dated. If your only exposure to animation has been Pixar’s digital wizardry, sure… I can see why you wouldn’t be impressed by Heavy Metal. But for me, this type of hand-drawn animation is something that should not be derided. Wall-E might have been breathtaking in its use of digital gimmickry, but Heavy Metal was rendered by hand, frame by frame. That, my friends, is art.

4 out of 5 stars

I just circled by Stevie B’s and picked up some bass strings today. I’ve been getting ready to do some recording, so it probably says a lot about my general outlook that I don’t intend to put these strings on before tonight’s gig in Ybor. These are for recording.

My spirit has been kind of low today. It seems like each week I look forward to going to Ybor a little less. Victoria and I really can’t afford the gas and other expenses that it takes to go to Tampa every week, and it’s really beginning to feel to me like the band isn’t going to go anywhere. On one hand there’s no real direction or drive other than us playing cover tunes and maybe booking some gigs. On the other, at least one member has stated that he has no interest in recording originals. Which is fine, I guess. But put it all together and I find myself scratching my head and wondering what the point is. No one, including myself, has been shaking the bushes trying to get us some weekend gigs. And if we’re not going to work on or record any originals, and we’re really not going to get out there and hit the clubs to play, what are we really doing? Why do we bother?

I guess I’m feeling my mortality today. The weeks keep slipping by, and I never seem to get anything done. Musically, I’m more aware than ever that my days of performing are limited. It could be another ten years. It could be another twenty. But I’m painfully aware that I have arthritis. I have probable nerve damage which sees my left hand cycling through various stages of numbness. On a few occasions it’s gotten so bad that I couldn’t feel the fretboard of my guitar beneath my fingers. But it’s not just numbness. I can’t physically throw off the same bass runs that I could ten years ago. Sometimes it hurts just to play. I’m not convinced that this is a matter of getting back into practice.

I really do feel like I need to get my music recorded while I can. Time’s slipping away. Which leads me to wonder why I’m spending money we don’t have traveling to Ybor City every week to play a bunch of songs that I’ve already been playing for the last twenty five years. Sure, there’s the obvious benefit of getting back into shape musically, as much as I can. My strength and stamina are returning. My timing is strong again. So playing with the band has been good for me. But I guess the big problem for me is simply that I want more. Much more. And if the sand is slipping through the proverbial hour glass where my capabilities are concerned, I need to figure out where my priorities lie.

Well, that’s an easy one, actually. This week I’m going to start recording the Crewe album. I’ve already re-strung the Stratocaster, and I just bought new strings for the Alembic. I can’t wait on the band, hoping that’ll it’ll morph into something creatively challenging, but doubting that it will. I look forward to playing with the band because I like these guys and playing with them helps keep me in shape, and I’ll continue to do that. But I can’t afford to wait for them. We just don’t have the same priorities. I’m not going to play with this band for no other reason than to get out of the house a bit every week. I have definite ambitions. If that’s all there’s going to be to this band, then it really does seem more like a distraction than a benefit.

Victoria has suggested that we have a band meeting. That I invite the guys over this weekend to talk about this stuff. I think I’ll do that. If nothing else, it’ll give us a chance to clear the air. For all we know, we all might want the same thing. We might be having the same frustrations because we’re making assumptions about what the others are thinking. If we’re going to do this, it has to be with everything laid out upon the proverbial table. Otherwise, we’ll just go along until the whole thing falls apart beneath us.

As for me, though, in the short term I’m going to start recording Crewe songs. I’m too old and too achy to wait for anyone else to come along and help me to get this done. Really, at this point in my life I’m painfully aware that my music, art and writing are all I’m going to be leaving behind when I’m gone. I need to get on with it.

This wasn’t a horrible movie, exactly. It was what I expected. Funny in parts, but nothing special. It’s a date movie, at best. I like Kevin James, but I don’t think anyone is likely to remember this movie as a comedy classic.

All that said, the movie had its moments. While I’m not keen to admit it, there were times that I found myself laughing out loud. Sadly, though, every time I found myself letting go enough to enjoy the movie, something would happen to remind me of just how rediculous the whole thing was. Was I expecting too much? Probably. Maybe I grew up in a golden age of comedy, because I just don’t get how these new movies are funny.

Of course, I’m sure someone was saying that when I was young, about Cheech & Chong, Richard Pryor and Robin Williams. Maybe I’m old, and I just don’t get the jokes. Or maybe it’s just that modern comedies are so painfully dull that if you’ve seen the previews before you go into the theater, you’ve already seen all the best bits in the movies.

2 out of 5 stars

I almost started my own religion last week. Then I realized that doing so would contradict everything that I believe. Oh, I don’t mean that doing so would go against my religious indoctrination. I just mean that organizing a religion is a contradiction for someone who has a problem with organized religion.

A few weeks ago I was angered by a cousin of mine who upset my mother by running her mouth about how she had visited my web site, and how what she found there scared her, and how Wiccans and Pagans are this or that or the other thing. How she knows so much about Wiccans and Pagans and witchcraft is beyond me. I don’t imagine she knows any Wiccans, Pagans or witches, or would recognize one if they passed her on the street. And she obviously doesn’t know me as a person from Adam’s house cat (to borrow one of my mother’s colorful phrases), since I’m not a Wiccan or a witch (though I’ll certainly admit to using the word “pagan” to describe myself on occasion).

What upset me most was that this cousin and the wife of another cousin started running their mouths about Wiccans and witchcraft and how I was messing around with dangerous stuff to such an extent that they upset my mother to a point that she went into the bathroom, shut the door behind her, and cried. That’s a most excellent way to wind up on my shit list. Make my mother cry. From that moment on, you’re a maggot, and can only influence the degree to which I think you’re a maggot. But you’ll always be a maggot.

(more…)

This was a terrible, terrible movie. It’s probably not the worse I’ve ever seen (by far), but it reminded me of one of those cheaply made B-grade horror movies you used to see at the drive-in. Jennifer Carpenter was great in it, but overall it seemed like a ridiculous plot was made worse by the fact that every technique used to make the movie seem scary has already been seen a gazillion times. *yawn*

I’m sorry, but the jerky camera technique lost its effectiveness not long after The Blair Witch Project. Mostly when I’m looking at grainy images at odd angles in movies now, it’s more distracting than anything. Maybe I would have bought into it more readily if the premise of this movie wasn’t so insulting. I mean… come on. A news reporter doing a story on a fire department winds up getting quarantined in a building by the Federal government because some guy up in the attic was concocting some kind of anarchist plot with some bio-weaponry virus he ordered from a Sears catalog or something? Then there’s the idea that outside the building there’s a camera crew that’s reporting on the fact that this building has been quarentined, but apparently never catches the armed personnel that keep shooting the inhabitants as they try to escape?

I liked Jennifer Carpenter in this movie. She was the only actor who seemed the least bit convincing in her role. Everyone else seemed to intuitively know how bad this movie was going to be, and put in only the minimal amount of effort. If not for the multi-million dollar ad campaign that featured Jennifer Carpenter being dragged away from the camera, this movie would have gone straight to DVD. Perhaps it should have. There’s nothing new here.

1 out of 5 stars