Twin Cats is my friend Joey Murphy’s project.
I mixed his album, Up North.

Joey toured the US this Summer as a solo show. I played bass in his band on the last gig of the tour, at the Southwest Folk Fest.

Here is a video of this performance:

I’m in Chicago now, as many have figured out.

I’m teaching summer school for a 3rd and 4th grade group of kids. They are a handful, but pretty neat other than the occasional spitball or cucaracha in a lunch sack. I had them make some comic books and am really just learning how to teach (no formal education training!!!).

I’m working on projects. One is basically finished. I mixed my friend Joey’s album.  He’s on tour starting last night. We went to a really cool mastering session yesterday. It was neat talking to the mastering engineer about acoustic and audio stuff. Here is MySpace link for the project (Twin Cats): http://www.myspace.com/twincats.

I’m also in the middle of producing some “Post-Soul” music for my friend Drew, who I was roommates with for a few short but fun months at the Radish Patch.

I’m still gearing up on finishing my compilation album, Potluckin’. I have a lot of material and it is scary to go through stuff that is so old…I’ve grown so much since then! The growth makes it exciting, but I am going nuts with my slow computer, since my mixes are so complex that they make it pant and wheeze like a granny in a marathon (no offense to awesome granny marathon runners).

I’m also considering doing some acoustic treatments on my music room so that I know EXACTLY how my recordings are sounding. Otherwise, it’s like spinach in my teeth when I share my tunes and they have faulty EQ based on inaccurate sound via my untreated space. But that’s pretty dorky stuff…

But yeah, things are alright!

I knock down blocks just to
build them back up
it don’t matter if somebody
underneath ‘em gets crushed.

I sell sling shots to
the kids on both sides
of the tracks to keep them
in a perpetual fight.

O it just makes sense
to keep our enemies incensed
and drain our tax dollars into defense
so that the dividends are dispensed.

When the dollar is dependent on
the price of energy we have to
threaten our suppliers
to protect our currency.

When the armies and the leaders and
the contractors conspire
they have the power to acquire
whatever they desire.

O it just makes sense
to keep our enemies incensed
and drain our tax dollars into defense
so that the dividends are dispensed.

Did you know that inflation happens because of military spending? That’s right.

The money that the Federal Reserve prints on demand to pay for overpriced, despotic, nepotistic, usurious and demonic military contracts causes our real hard earned cash to melt away like cotton candy.

Our tax dollars at work

The only question is, when and how will Ron Paul’s character be assassinated (as was Dean’s)? http://redstateeclectic.typepad.com/redstate_commentary/2008/01/fox-vs-ron-paul.html 

I saw this great YouTube clip posted on Boing Boing from back when Sesame Street was cool (pre-Elmo hegemony).

It’s wonderful introductory illustration of what is called the Flower of Life, a hermetic geometric construction that has inspired everything from Leonardo da Vinci to the Qabbalah.

In the video, there are also some serious geometric references to Metatron’s Cube, or the Platonic solids.

I haven’t watched Sesame Street for a long time, but I can say for certain that these types of inspiring and mysterious animations have been largely abandoned for the cuddly baby talk of a newer school of childhood educational television. I can only lament the loss of the powerful conduit of creative and metaphysical wealth that Jim Henson’s initial seed provided to the program before it catered to the ’safe’ and de-intellectualized content that it currently provides. Thank God for newer programs like Yo Gabba Gabba!

It’s equally shameful that the same content-laden episodes of Sesame Street that have forever implanted within my psyche a creative curiosity for mystery are those that are now being released for DVD with a caution that they are “not appropriate for children.”

I fear that the “Disney-channel-izing” of our children into a group of pro-consumption, shaggy-haired, Zack and Cody fashionistas is going to have dire effects on free thought in the US in the coming decades. Who will rescue the weirdos and misfits from their alienation from the affluent, tan and blonde Children of the Damned that insist on having three X-Box 360’s in the house (one for each child) and are perpetually sick from school so they can ingest more and more flickering screens of entertainment?

Hipstian (hip-schuh n) n. A christian hipster. Usually found riding fixed gear bikes and buying organic produce at farmer’s markets. Also known to drink, smoke, and have premarital sex.

The Kansas City Star featured an article about the Calm Dome [1, 2] in the FYI section earlier this month. Here’s a link to the article: http://www.kansascity.com/238/story/216486.html.

Previous mentions:

[1.] http://perhapsidid.wordpress.com/2007/06/19/calm-dome-photos/
[2.] http://perhapsidid.wordpress.com/2007/06/13/the-calmdome/

We just rolled back into OSRUI Camp in Oconomowoc, WI. I took a nice cleansing shower and have been checking up on various accounts and messages via the lovely basement computer lounge for camp staff. It’s great to be back, I can’t wait to get back to see my lovely lady and doggy, family, and friends!

 I’ve got some pictures that I will soon have time to upload, so stay tune.

Hello and Shalom! I am writing this brief update of my status at the wonderful camp OSRUI (Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute) located in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.

Here I am in the service of driving SAG (support and gear) for a daring group. The gang consists of:

15 steely young Jewish bicyclists,
an organized (thankfully!) counselor,
an Israeli bike guru,
and a wild and unorthodoxed Rabbi (who tends to lie on his side like a bald Buddha).

We’re embarking on a rough and tumble ride-and-camp adventure around Lake Michigan.

Through the wonders of Wal-Greens, I have procured an inexpensive camera with free film (as long as I get my prints at a Wal-greens), which I will be digitizing and posting to the web as often as I can. I’m not sure when and/or if I will be able to get near a computer (possibly not til the end of the trip), but I’ll try my best to post a status report or two after this one when able.

Things are exciting, since we are leaving tommorrow morning. I’ve been spending the week getting acquainted with the camp, its staff and campers, and also biking around with the group as they train for the mission. Basically, I’m getting to live the camper’s life and get a paycheck to boot. Sure beats a cubicle job.

So, stay tuned to my RSS feed to see what’s happening on our Tour La’Agam (agam is Hebrew for lake).

I’m sure you saavy listeners use internet radio services like Pandora et al. It’s no surprise that anyone with diverse taste has flocked to this well of plenty online to enjoy acts that are too brilliant to otherwise blind the minds of the casual radio masses.

However, this is in danger of dying out due to rate increases being pushed by the recording industry. If you’d like to keep the ability to have decent broadcasting available to you in place of having to turn down your stereo immediately when the ads start blasting (the stations play ads 10-15% louder than the content), visit this link that will help you to find the phone number for your congressperson. It takes under 5 minutes to call, so let them know that you mean business!

If this is scattered, it is because I am exhausted from overtime work!