Monthly Archives August 2011

There’s a part in Frank Zappa’s concert film “Baby Snakes” where he addresses his dismay at Perter Frampton and his recent image change with the song “I’m In You”
In all fairness, Frampton kinda got tricked into taking a sexy pic at the end of a photo shoot and the next thing you know, it’s his next album cover
But the lead in to the Zappa rant started with “Some of you already have those cute little T-shirts on that say DISCO SUCKS. That’s not all that sucks…”
The way it came across to me is that Zappa wasn’t just addressing Disco the music but Disco the industry
Disco the music was usually played by very accomplished session musicians including real live orchestral musicians
Yes kids, there was a day when you had to use real musicians
Not to say that programming is The Devil and it’s no...

Last night’s video mixing gig at The Fallout Lounge went very well
I had an initial discussion with the event’s organizer, Desirae and she was a bit concerned that her theme was too specific
I chuckled to myself because this person had no knowledge of my super movie geek powers
She wanted to do films that referenced the 50’s and early 60’s but were produced later on
The films that immediately popped into my head were The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, Hairspray and of course, Grease
Then there was one of my favorites, The Wanderers
She also suggested another lesser known John Waters film Cry Baby (well, I knew less of it)
I also liked Parents and Fido but wanted to stick closer to the films she knew
The answer was to use the trailers of films that wouldn’t make the “condense’ list

None of the ma...

The national debate about the economy seems to divide society into 3 camps
The rich, the poor and the rapidly dwindling middle class
Until recently, those middle class citizens vacated their positions on the ladder by moving upward
Now, the areas south of the poverty line are filling up rapidly
The inhabitants used to be mostly darker skinned Americans and people like me
We peacefully co-existed with each other, mostly in the service industry
Mutual respect came from occupying the same rung of the ladder whilst maintaining our dignity
“They” were just honest people looking to feed their families born or immigrated into a very meager existence
“We” were slackers who were mostly born into the middle class and yet weren’t born with the primal urge to move up the ladder
Rather that we pursued ...

“Just because it didn’t work out doesn’t mean I failed”
This is the new lesson I have learned due to my latest musical endeavor

I recently got involved with some musicians that asked me to write drums and record for them
Things didn’t work out the way I wanted and I basically had to realize that it was time to cut my losses
Normally, I would be coming down hard on myself right now for failing yet again but I approached this situation with a new concept
“If I fail this time, it won’t be because I didn’t work hard enough”

There were a whole bunch of red flags the whole way throughout this process but I stuck it through until I was convinced that the effort was futile
I tolerated someone else’s ego and even managed to navigate some pretty choppy waters thanks to “Zen Rockula”
Situations where...