Random Stuff

Some random thoughts on a Friday night shortly before bed when I am so tired I can’t think straight.

16 days until our next Rush concert. It will be my 28th dating back to December 1987. It is the last show we currently have tickets for. Will it be my last Rush show ever? I thought my last Rush show ever was in 2015 but I’ve seen them three times since June and that is a seemingly miraculous gift. I’m very thankful.

I watched the new TV version of Carrie. It was so fucking good. I read the book years ago and while it was fine it is not my favorite Stephen King novel. King might be my favorite author. If he’s not my favorite he’s probably top three… or top two… I’m a huge fan. Carrie though, that one is good but it seems somehow… lesser than most classic King stories. There’s something missing. I don’t have the vocabulary skills needed to describe what is missing.

The show though… Mike Flanagan made the show. I’ve never seen any of his movies, but I’ve seen all of his Netflix TV series and they are all fantastic. This show slots in perfectly. It’s so good. He’s supposed to be working on an adaptation of The Dark Tower and I can’t wait. I can’t wait. Did you hear me say that I can’t wait?

Now that I am through with Carrie it’s time to start watching Vision Quest. I’m also watching Dark Matter. That one is really good too.

I need to take the camera out this weekend and shoot a roll of film. I’m trying to shoot a 120 roll of both Kodak Gold 200 and Kentmere 100 each month. I already have a roll of Gold done for October but I still need to shoot the Kentmere. I just don’t know what to shoot. I won’t have time tomorrow (Saturday) so I hope to get it done on Sunday.

I want to write a couple of songs before October ends too. Think of it like releasing a single. I had an idea pop into my head yesterday but I didn’t have a chance to put it down somewhere and now its gone. I hate when that happens. I also want to replace an overdrive pedal. I don’t like Boss pedals as a rule but I bought a mod of a Boss overdrive pedal made by a boutique company a few years ago and I recently found out that the boutique company donated money to trump. Nope. Done with those fuckers. Now I want to find anyother boutique mod/clone of that Boss pedal that is better than the shitty standard Boss pedal. I hate how snobby I get sometimes but there’s no way I am using a pedal made by a fascist collaborator on the off chance that someone might someday see me playing it and want to pick one up for themselves and give money to a fucking fascist. Nope. Not happening.

What was I talking about?

I started rambling and started pissing myself off about the state of our shit country. I’ll change the subject.

Yesterday I wrote about our leaky tub getting fixed. At least I hope it was fix. We gave it all day today to let the fix set and dry and settle and do whatever it needs to do. I’m looking forward to running the shower tomorrow to see if we get any water in the cellar. Please no. Pretty please no.

Okay, I am really tired. I’m going to fall asleep. Correction, I am going to try and watch an episode of Vision Quest (episode two, to be precise) and then I am going to fall asleep. Hopefully in that order. Wish me luck.

Momentous Occasion

Could today be the day?

Could today finally be the day?

Could today finally be the day where we stop having water drip from our tub onto the sub-floor, which rots a hole into the sub-floor and then drips down into the cellar and screws up the cellar floor and some unfortunately placed furniture?

We have a contractor here who took out a chunk of the wall next to the tub where the water pools up to inspect the damage and he thinks he found the source of the problem and even more important, he thinks he has a fix that does not include ripping out the tub and starting over. 

Oh please please please let today be the day that this ends and please please please let the fix not include ripping out our tub and starting over. I am crossing my fingers, my toes, my eyes, and even a couple of my teeth.

ADDENDUM: As I was typing this he found another possible source of the leak and he’s going to fix that too. Oh please please please let this end today.

Just Sleep

My stomach has been kind of a jerk the last couple of days. Fun with post-gastric bypass surgery and stuff. I’m uncomfortably full one minute and literally painfully hungry the next. 

I want to sleep through the night and my stomach won’t let me. Now I’m exhausted and I just want to watch an episode of Carrie but I’m too tired.

I Scared the Crap Out of a Huge Bird

We were sitting in the living room today when something weird happens. There was a loud bang coming from the side of the house. BOOM. What was that? We all asked at the same time.

It was not a cat. Both cats were in the room with us. I had a suspicion about what it was. Every now and then we’ll have birds come out of the woods behind our house and fly right into a window. That’s sort of what this was like except it was a lot louder.

I went to my wife’s office and opened up the curtain and looked outside. Sure enough there was a bird on the ground right there. Not just any bird. It was a huge bird. It was a freakin’ red tailed hawk! Well, I need a photo of this puppy, sure do!

I ran back into the living room and grabbed my point and shoot which just happened to be on the end table right inside the doorway. With the camera in hand I went back to the office. My gigantic bird friend was still there. Just hanging out. It didn’t look injured. It looked more… bored. 

I pulled the curtain open a little wider, raised the camera, and our new bird friend saw the movement, turned toward me, looked me straight in the eyes, said “oh shit!”* and then bolted into the woods at near the speed of sound.

Chances are, the hawk didn’t just crash into the house. It’s likely that it was hunting and it crashed into the house while slaughtering a small animal. Let’s call it a taking the good with the bad sort of thing.

*You think this is the part of the post where I say the bird didn’t really speak English it was more of a symbolic thing but no… our friend the hawk actually said, “oh shit” before flying away.

Saturday Stuff

I woke up later than usual but because of the time of year the sun had not come up yet. I took advantage and grabbed a couple of cameras and went out to shoot some golden hour pics. I went to Weir Hill in Andover hoping there would be some fall foliage colors on display. There was… a little… nothing to write home about though. I shot two rolls of 120 film and 2/3 of a roll of 35mm.

I went home and had breakfast with my wife and my step son and his girlfriend. I did some chores around the house and then we went apple picking. Our first stop was out of honeycrisp so they sent us to an alternate location and we filled a couple of bags. I shot most of the rest of that 35mm roll. We then went to a comic/games store in Manchester, NH and bought some Magic the Gathering stuff so my step son could start teaching his girlfriend how to play. My step daughter started teaching me and my wife a month or so ago so we all sat at the dining room table and played a game. I was more lost than not. While at the comics store I finished the roll of film. 

Up next is dinner, my wife is making turkey tacos, and then we’re going to watch the first of the two IT movies. I’m really tired tonight but hopefully I won’t doze during the movie. 

I’m thinking of taking the cameras out again in the morning but I am not sure where I want to go. Should I take advantage of the really late sunrise and go to the ocean again? I might. We will see.

Another Pedal Company Down

I haven’t been as out of control buying guitar gear over the last year or two as I was prior, but I have gone through stretches where I get hyper obsessed with making tiny tweaks to my guitar sound that require me to buy amps and pedals and accessories. I own a bunch of amps and a lot of pedals. I mean, a lot of pedals. Every now and then one of them bites me in my conscious’ ass. That seems to have happened today.

The first time it happened was when I found out the owner/operator of a boutique pedal company that made a really cool fuzz pedal that I really wanted had donated money to a church that sponsored pray away the gay conversion bullshit. When called on it he got defensive and just made a mess out of it. He also apparently ripped off a circuit from a woman and then got really ugly with his verbal attacks when he was called out. The woman was actually trans and he went after her and it was just bad. I never bought that fuzz pedal. I never will. I won’t do business with a putz like that.

Fast forward to 2020 and I put a second pedal company on the no-fly list when one schmuck in California went after people who were protesting the murder of George Floyd. He first implied that his neighbors store windows were more important than a human being’s life, and then when he was called on it he verbally attacked his own customers. He said if we supported the George Floyd protests we were unworthy of using his gear. Can you believe that? What kind of utter narcissist would say something like that? I owned three of his pedals. Two of them were on my main board at the time and one of them is still the best pedal of its kind I’ve ever heard. Those three pedals are now rotting in a box in my cellar where they will spend the rest of eternity. I don’t do business with assholes like that and I won’t let other people see me using his stuff on the off chance it might lead to a sale. Fortunately this asshole’s company went out of business not long after. Unfortunately, he has had some luck restarting it. 

Now there’s a new one to get pissed off about. Early this morning I saw a post on social media saying that the owner and operator of this very successful boutique pedal company that has been around since the birth of the boutique pedal market is a trump donor. The post included screen shots of receipts. I own two of this guy’s pedals. One of them is at my bass player’s house waiting for me to go over and pick it up. It’s possibly the best overdrive pedal I’ve ever played that isn’t made by Klon. The other is a mod of a well known overdrive that I put on my board about a month ago while looking to change up my sound for the demos I was making for the 50 songs in 90 days challenge. One great pedal, one very good pedal. I was also thinking about buying another overdrive that this guy sells. I had actually put it into my shopping cart on musiciansfriend.com but had not yet pulled the trigger. Thankfully. I will not do business with a fascist or even a fascist collaborator. Not in this lifetime at least. To hell with this clown. I’ll have to pull his pedal off of my board. I’ll probably replace it with a King of Tone because Analogman is on the record as being very anti-trump and… well… selfishly and musically… its one of the best overdrive pedals on Earth. So… win win, I guess.

I hate it when fascism and racism and sexism and religious bullshit make me feel bad about myself musically. Fuck all of those assholes.

I wasn’t going to name names, but screw that. The gay conversion donation came from JHS, the George Floyd asshole was Fulltone, and the trump donor is Keeley Electronics.

Just Leak Them

How many people have seen the complete unredacted Epstein files? I saw a story tonight about a US congressman who was commenting on how the files definitely include something about trump raping kids. Has that congressman seen the documents with his own eyes? If so, I have one question for him and for anyone else who may have seen the full unredacted files…

Why haven’t any of you just leaked the whole thing to the press? Just put it all on a thumb drive or stack the print outs in a trapper keeper folder or something and just drop them off at your local newspaper office? 

Just leak the fucking files and get it overwith.

Your country requires this service. Leak the god damned files already. Help a country out. Do the right thing.

First of the Season

I looked out the window this morning not long after sunrise and saw this. There are actually two deer in this picture. The other one is on the other side of the bush that they were both sowing down on.

I took this through a window (obviously) using my iPhone. There was no noise at all but as soon as I snapped the pic both deer turned toward me and just stared at me. For a long time. It was like they were gazing into my soul, trying to decide if they were going to jump through the window and eat me.

I’ve had a super stressful week at work this week. Lots of shit going down. Nothing truly bad, just lots of stress. Knowing that I lost a staring contest to two super annoyed does at the very start of my day was just the kind of weirdness I needed to put it all into perspective.

Unrelated note: I think its 25 days until we see Rush again.