Author: robertjames1971

I'm wicked tall.

2023 50/90 Challenge Day 53 of 90

I already wrote about car music this morning. I put vocals on three songs. What have I done since then?

Well, first I added another song idea. That’s idea number 35. It’s just bass riffs for now. Later, after dinner tonight, I started writing melodies and lyrics. I got through five songs. Count ’em, five songs. They are all crap, but that gives me more than enough for another round of car music tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll follow the morning car music with a pile of guitar tracks. I am hoping to use my step son’s Epiphone beginner model Les Paul copy on at least a song or two, and hopefully that will happen tomorrow.

Plans are in place, I just have to follow through. Progress!

Lily

I posted a film pic of Robin so here is a digital pic of Lily just to even things out.

CIMG7488

I think I am going to give the Casio point and shoot digital another chance. I messed with the settings. I turned off the Auto ISO and just set it at the highest value. Maybe that will help.

Friday Morning Car Music

I recorded some vocals this morning. Three songs worth. I drove to the movie theater parking lot so no one could hear me, which is how I do things because I am such a wimp. Here’s the view:

I was only out for about half an hour and I did cut things off early. I had three songs ready to go that were written in August and two more that were written in July. I did the three August songs and was about to start one of the July songs when I opened up the GarageBand file and found there were a lot of lyrics to sing. I just didn’t have the energy and decided to save the two July songs for a weekend session.

I have changed up my workflow a little. Mostly in terms of standards. I am thinking of quick and dirty demoes now, due to flaking off for three weeks and falling so far behind the 50/90 pace. Last night when I wrote the melodies and lyrics for the three songs I recorded this morning I purposely decided to use the same parts in multiple places. Meaning I wrote one verse part and used it 2-3 times. I usually do that with chorus sections but I’m doing it more often now. I also purposely did not write a lot of harmony parts. One or two here and there but nowhere near as many as I usually write. I’m also lowering my standards for what is a useable take. That goes for vocals and guitars. I’m going to be much sloppier than usual and much less nitpicky. Is nitpicky a word?

I want finished demoes from here on out, rather than quality demoes. Know what I mean?

Anyway, here’s the obligatory downtown Methuen clock from the drive home pic:

359/365

City of the Future-ish

Daily writing prompt
How would you design the city of the future?
View all responses

My first thought when I read today’s prompt was to think, “nope. Not playing along today. This one is dumb and I don’t care.” Then I thought about it for a few seconds and came up with one or two ideas and now I am back to playing along.

I come from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. My city was founded 400 or so years ago, centuries before the industrial revolution kicked off. The city wasn’t designed, it evolved. What we now call roads, both major and minor, were originally probably cow paths or hiking trails or horse and buggy lanes. They likely didn’t make any sense at the start and given modern transportation options they sure as hell don’t make sense today.

If I were to design a city for the future I would start from there. I would lay out the roads in an efficient, smart manner. Either a grid or a wheel with spokes or something like that. The roads would be wide enough to support multiple lanes of traffic. There would be routes reserved for cars, routes for trucks, routes for bicycles and other pedestrian traffic, and plenty of space for foot traffic. I imagine the foot traffic areas would be separated from the roads somehow and probably look more like parks. In Boston we have Commonwealth Avenue and the Rose Kennedy Greenway. I’d probably design it similar to those ideas.

Under the city would be great big gobs of public transportation. An extensive subway system. If I am going to have all of this space for surface traffic it’s going to mean my swanky city is going to be pretty huge in terms of square footage, you know? You’re not going to be able to easily walk from one end of town to the other so subways will take care of that. I’m not an economist (or an engineer) so I don’t know how, but I would hopefully figure out a way to make public transportation free. We’ll see about that, capitalism.

The buildings would need to be tall. My town will be a skyscraper town. I would want the commercial and residential districts to be close to each other in hopes that people could get an apartment close to work, or get a job close to home. I don’t know how to do that, but it’s an idea. I’d have to hire smart engineers to piece all of these wacky ideas together, but I’m sure someone would have the know-how to pull it off.

Now all I need is the land to build this goofy metropolis. It’s going to need a lot of space. How close are we to terraforming Mars? That might be enough square footage, maybe.

I guess my next thought is… did I just plagiarize Epcot? Probably. That would make sense.

2023 50/90 Challenge Day 52 of 90

I mentioned this morning that I put rhythm guitars on two songs and lead guitars on two other songs. Tonight after dinner, while binging season six of the original Doctor Who, I wrote lyrics and melodies for three songs.

You know what that means?

Car music in the morning.

That’s the plan at least. We’ll see if it pans out or not. Fingers crossed. I’ll let you know.

Crazy Thursday

What a nutty kinda day it’s been. Sheesh.

My step son Harry is home from Vermont right now because his car is in the shop and he needed to go to a mechanic near us because he couldn’t get one near his home without having to wait for a month or two. He needs to head back to Vermont tonight, but his car isn’t going to be ready until next week.

He went through his insurance claim (long story that you will not get details on) to get a rental for the next week. At lunch today I drove him to the rental car place to pick up his temp-ride. They told him they needed to call the insurance company to verify our plan will cover the rental because he is under age. The rental agent called them and found their entire system was down. They couldn’t look up our (or anyone’s) policy.

Harry offered to stay at the rental place until it was worked out so that I could go home and get back to work. Fortunately by around 2:40 or so the insurance system issues were cleared up and he was able to drive off in his rental car. All worked out for the best eventually, but talk about annoying!

On an unrelated, less serious, but still annoying note, at around 9:30-10:00 or so this morning both cats snuck their way into the cellar. Both of them! After an hour or so I was able to coax Lily back upstairs but Robin wanted nothing to do with it. A short while later I was trying to bribe Robin upstairs with some treats and Lily ran past me and went back down stairs again! FFFFUUUU!!!! That was just before we had to go to the rental agency!

When I got home I expected them both to be sitting on the stairs waiting for the door to open. Nope. Neither of them were. I got Robin upstairs soon enough, and by 2:00 I had them both upstairs. They both tried to eat a plant, one of them knocked over a box full of guitar gear, they got into just about everything down here. There are so many places for a cat to hide, I was unable to find them on my own. I also had to trip a few mouse traps, just in case they stumbled across them. What a couple of feline jerks, right? Bad kitties!

They are upstairs now though so they are good kitties once again. Still… sheesh!

Okay. Back to work. I have a meeting in nine minutes. Here’s hoping the zaniness is done for the day. I need a nap!