Easter is one of those holidays that sneaks up on me, like Arbor Day or Daylight Savings Time. I can’t keep track since I don’t care enough. I just figure someone will tell me when it’s coming up and if I have to do something I will.
Holidays with kids’ activities get people excited if they have kids. Since I don’t, caring is optional.
It was not optional back in the newspaper days. You depended on Easter Egg Hunts to get art for the front page. Hopefully the ad department would get a business to buy a full color ad on the back page. Then your Easter photos would be in color that year. What a treat!
Usually, the Chamber of Commerce put those together, but I’d take a church or a neighborhood association in a pinch. I knew I could get away with kids looking at their baskets pics, but those were boring. You wanted to catch ‘em from in front, running.
I would try to coordinate with the organizer so I could get a good spot, far enough ahead, but once they cut that ribbon or said “go,” it was like the Oklahoma Land Rush. Every kid for him or herself. Not much of a hunt, more of a free for all.
Half the time, they’d all be past me while I was still adjusting the camera and I’d be trying to get ahead of the little tykes, which was impossible.
If I was lucky I’d get one front page worthy pic, then I could get a half-dozen kids counting their eggs/candy that I could run on page 3, which was a chance to get more kids in the paper. You could never get ‘em all in, which is probably why Facebook got us in the end.
The first place I ever rented when I was a green sports reporter was a studio apartment on a ranch. I wasn’t allowed any visitors, curtains or a window unit AC.
I had to accept the terms because there was literally no other place to rent within driving distance of work. Anyway, I liked being in the country.
The apartment was native limestone, built around the cistern that supplied water to the whole ranch. I had to enter a code and drive over a cattle guard through an automatic gate.
The idea when they built the place was that the cistern would cool the apartment. I think it just increased the humidity. I had to keep cleaning mildew off the cistern.
When the water level dropped below a certain level a pump turned on, drawing more water from the well. You never knew when it was coming and it was LOUD.
It woke me up the first night after giving me the dumbest dream. I was Popeye, fighting with Bluto as he often did. I thought up the wittiest cutdown ever and shouted “Monkey Bluto! Monkey Bluto! Monkey Bluto!”
And woke up to the damn pump going “Monkey Bluto! Monkey Bluto! Monkey Bluto!” What the hell? It always sounded like that to me from then on.
Molly Drake – The Tide’s Magnificence: Songs and Poems of Molly Drake
Molly Drake is my new favorite artist and will be for a while. Nick Drake’s mother! Why didn’t anybody tell me about this?
I haven’t been this moved this much by anything in years. Just a beautiful voice singing beautiful poetry. I guess I can see where Nick Drake got his talent. She was obviously an influence.
I just discovered her songs and was captivated. If I had discovered her when I was in college I probably would have retroactively fallen in love with her. I was a weird kid.
Her music is old school art. She should be as famous as her son, as a singer and as a poet. It’s kind of… I don’t know, classical? 40s pop? British folk? It’s kind of old fashioned, but at the same time it’s like buried treasure. Something your art teacher forgot to mention.
Her music had no exposure until 2000 when people heard a couple of her songs in the Nick Drake documentary, A Skin Too Few. It seems crazy that she’s been so little-known all this time. She also has an amazing life story.
In a way it makes me sad. We’re all having wars about culture and we have plenty of entertainment, but it sometimes feels like people have forgotten how to love art. Except for hip hop of course. (They’re the only relevant American poets anymore. Not all, but some.)
I love this almost as much as Pink Moon. It’s crazy that I hadn’t gotten around to talking about Nick Yet and here I am posting about his mother. I just had to share. I’m that big a culture nerd.
I had a dream the other night that I can’t seem to shake.
I had just watched The Edge of Tomorrow and it got the wheels turning. All those versions of Tom Cruise’s character were different people. He started as an asshole. By the end he was not. How about all those in-between Tom Cruises? What kind of men were they?
I started the dream as “The Angel of Verdun,” then immediately became Lt. Col. Cage. Each wanted to save the other, just like in the movie.
But it stopped being about the movie and I was just regular old me, watching from a hill and seeing a flock of Me’s. Me from a million timelines. Everyone I could have been.
Ranks and ranks of me as far as the eye could see. All the men I didn’t want to be, each one in a trap I had somehow avoided. Lonely men who lived alone and became bitter and isolated.
Men marrying into the church, having to lie to himself and others that he still believed, bitter and isolated. Men who never jumped off the runaway conservative train and didn’t know how to get off. Me’s who never escaped.
It felt like one of those dreams Carl Jung talked about. The ones you are supposed to figure out. Dreams that are clearly messages from the unconscious. I’ve had a few of those over the years. I’m still puzzling over a couple of them.
What did this mean?
I think the fact I changed perspectives at the beginning was a clue. Something about connectedness.
Maybe that we should see a bit of ourselves in the people we don’t want to be if we can. If you’re one of those former conservatives who feels like they’ve escaped, there had to be timelines where you didn’t.
What got you into that backward mindset and what got you out? I’ll try to do that with this blog if I can. If it reaches any young version of me and helps them make better choices, I’ll be happy if it’s just one guy.
I’m also hoping the more enlightened folks among us will make room for redemption and be a friend when a friend is needed. Victims of misinformation are still victims. Many thanks to those who helped me out of my mental traps, even if they never got to see it happen.
Randy Newman – God’s Song (That’s Why I Love Mankind)
A while back I posted some happy memories about going to church in the early ’70s. But there’s a reason why I left and will never go back. I didn’t reach that decision lightly.
Being an active, church-going Baptist teen in a small town was by turns wonderful, annoying, and confusing. And for me at least, traumatizing.
I doodled in the church bulletin, but I listened. I thought parts of the Bible must be metaphors, but figured the preachers had it mostly right. I felt ashamed. Everyone seemed so certain, but I never could. What was wrong with me?
At times I was sure I must have committed the “unforgivable sin,” which was never defined, or I was predestined not to be one of “the elect.” Because something was obviously wrong. They were all so certain. Why couldn’t I be?
And I was afraid. Of hell, the Apocalypse, of predestination. Baptists might be “once saved, always saved,” but how could you know for sure that when you “accepted Jesus into your heart” that feeling you had was really the Holy Spirit?
The preacher seemed to be talking about me every time he preached about hell. Sometimes I couldn’t take it and I’d “get saved” again. “This time for real, Lord. This time I really mean it.”
I lost count at four. I’d say the words I knew to say and in a few days I’d get baptized. (Protip: Always check your pockets first.)
One year I got scare-saved at church camp – then got so horny for a girl on the way home I threw away the “I got saved” forms. Another swing, another miss.
Methodists believed you could “fall from grace.” I hoped I was only backslid. I would have to try harder.
Maybe the girl I crushed on was the answer. And she was the only girl my age in our church. It had to be fate, right? She was indeed a good kid, but in my head I gave her every virtue I felt I was missing. We would date, marry, have kids, and those doubts and temptations would go away.
I never once asked her out, whatever that would’ve meant for a guy with no money in a town with nothing to do. The thought was terrifying. As long as I didn’t ask, it could still come true. The fantasy was all I had. What if she said no?
Bonobo – Cirrus (animation by Cyriak). Cyriak’s video is a great illustration of the machine.Look around. You’re inside it.You’re part of it.
I want to bring up something everyone knows, but may not REALLY know: the “machine” some of us rage against, and other serve willingly, is real. There’s no conspiracy you can uncover, no group you can scapegoat to get at that machine. It’s bigger than all of us.
You can’t see it because you’re inside it. You can’t touch it, but everything you touch is part of it. It has important parts – computers and networks, politicians and oligarchs. And it has little parts like you and me (I’ve heard those referred to as “cogs”).
But none of those parts control the machine. Only the parts to which they’ve been assigned. Some may believe they control it, but they only serve it. The puppet master IS the machine.
Gravity’s Rainbow was a challenging read. A lot of people tell me they couldn’t get through it, which I get. I stuck it out cuz I’m stubborn.
It’s been a few years since I read it, but that’s what I took from it: It’s about that thing we’ve created that controls our lives.
It’s beyond the control of any one government or corporation. And it might as well be a living thing because it acts like one. It eats, it tramples, it defecates.
In Gravity’s Rainbow, World War II, that machine’s cruelty finally got so loud it attracted like-minded entities, “the angels.” Angels that could grant favors, including a “heaven” where members of the group they contacted could live out cherished fantasies, but in exchange they had to be willing to betray, and be betrayed.
And the V2 rocket with the mysterious device that Slothrop never finds? That’s the “thing” we’re all chasing that we’re never going to find. For some it’s Happiness, for some it’s Truth. You can’t get either of those from a machine.
I think Thomas Pynchon was thinking of that machine when he wrote Gravity’s Rainbow. Sci fi nut that I am, I pondered the question before I even had my first PC: Could this complicated high tech civilization be alive?
If so, does it know what its doing, or is it like those creatures I loved to watch through my microscope as a kid? If it’s the latter, is that something we want to change?
Do we really want that machine to have free will? Because once it does, we may not.
Rye Rye (featuring MIA) – Better Than You
With Artificial Intelligence, it appears the human race may be giving that machine (whatever it is – industrial civilization, capitalism, globalism) consciousness. Or, as I suspect, more than one consciousness.
My current hunch is that “true” artificial intelligence will happen more than once, and that there will be numerous AIs with different personalities motives inherited from the people and societies that made them.
Passing the Turing Test isn’t enough to prove to me something is conscious. But once AIs do, we’ll be in the dark. As they keep getting smarter, they might become truly conscious. All we can do is guess.
Self-aware AIs might develop politics and make treaties to decide the machine’s fate – and ours. Call me old fashioned, but I believe that should be up to us.
Johnny Rebeck, a campfire song I learned from my dad. Except the version I learned he was Johnny Verbeck. It’s one of those funny, not-funny songs. Somehow I think it fits.
Just found out last night that Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away and thought I needed to show my appreciation. I first came across his music via the Yellow Magic Orchestra.
I found them on Napster back when I thought I was a pirate trying to download the entire internet. I was way into techno and all kinds of electronica back then. Any kind, from any place.
Yellow Magic Orchestra – Rydeen
YMO sounded like the future – and also the past. It reminded me of my teenage years in the early ’80s, at the arcade. The ’80s were when I knew for certain that the future was coming. I think I still have a few of those tokens. Anyone remember those?
Yellow Magic Orchestra – Firecracker
YMO definitely put their stamp on the future, but Sakamoto was way more than that. He composed the soundtracks for numerous movies, including The Last Emperor and the Revenant. But what really blew me away was discovering songs from his soundtrack to Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, a movie Sakamoto appeared in, along with David Bowie.
I found that thanks to another of my musical heroes, David Sylvian, formerly of the group known as Japan. I followed Sylvian’s career after Japan. I really love his unique voice. Sylvian and Sakamoto collaborated more than once, but “Forbidden Colours” is the one that really turned me onto Sakamoto. Such a beautiful song.
Yellow Magic Orchestra – Ballet. Vocals are by Yoshiro Takahashi, who also passed away earlier this year. I definitely need to show him more love. I totally mistook his voice for Sylvian’s at first. Maybe that explains why he and Sakamoto were able to collaborate so well.
Yellow Magic Orchestra – Cosmic Surfin’. How cool is this? Wish I’d been there.
I was just talking to my wife about what a cereal addict I was when I was a kid. I wanted anything that had a cartoon. Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, Cap’n Crunch, Lucky Charms. All the monster ones, Count Chocula, Frankenberry, Booberry.
But we rarely got those. Dad was always trying to save money, so he’d buy generic cornflakes and fake Cheerios (anyone remember the generic stuff that came in a plain white box? Store brands weren’t a thing yet.).
G. Love & Special Sauce – Milk & Cereal
Then he’d pour it all in a clean, galvanized trash can and stir it all up. Any good cereal got lost in the mix. You had to dump a lot of sugar on it. If we were out we got into the baking stuff. Powdered sugar, honey, even Karo syrup.
One of my brother’s little friends was over one time and he asked if she wanted any cereal. She said, “Umm. My parents don’t let me eat out of trash cans.” LOL.
A few times I had to settle for Trix, also a disappointment. “Silly Rabbit tricks are for kids. That’s why we have you.” That’s what I thought when I saw those commercials.
DJ Yoda featuring Biz Markie – Breakfast Cereal
How are you gonna have a cartoon character and your cereal isn’t sweet? I knew what I was asking for was a bowl of candy, but I was a kid. I wanted to eat a bowl of candy.
It was also a disappointment if it didn’t come with a prize. Which caused fights of course. You’d wake up when it was still dark only to catch your brother in the kitchen, his hand at the bottom of the box, with the plastic trinket in his hand. Aha! Mine!
The only decent cereal my dad liked was a granola cereal called Heartland. He was basically eating crumbled up cookies for breakfast, but at least the art on the box made it look healthy. We usually ate it up before he got any. Sorry Dad.
One of my favorite things about being a bachelor. I’d to walk around in my apartment with my hand in box of Cap’n Crunch.
I’m allergic to most cartoon food nowadays, but Honey Nut Cheerios should work. They had a cartoon bee didn’t they?
Just figured out what’s happening in my “Starry Night with UFOs” T-shirt. The aliens are coming back to blast that village for being mean to their boy! Take that haters! Zzzzt!
I’ve always loved Van Gogh and his unique vision. I was an art student for two years, how could I not? I still don’t know if he’s been honored properly in recent times.
I like “American Pie,” but I’m frankly underwhelmed by Don McLean’s “Starry Starry Night.” It comes off kinda maudlin to me. I also wasn’t as impressed with the Doctor Who episode as my wife was, nor could I get into the Willem Dafoe movie.
I get the impulse we all have to try and make up for how shitty he was treated in his day, but the Doctor Who fantasy is not possible. He’s never going to know.
Maybe I have trouble with all the tributes. Of course his life makes a good, if sad, story. Who wouldn’t be interested? But I would focus on what he created, rather than how sad his life was.
That’s what he wanted. For people to look at his art and try to get it, not talk about his various humiliations.
I went to one of those traveling Van Gogh exhibits where they project his art on the wall and the floors. I still don’t know if it did him justice, but at least his art had the biggest part in the show.
What I see in Van Gogh is a challenge to creative people. How much are you willing to sacrifice to remain true to your vision? How much are you willing to compromise in order to be accepted? (Or as is increasingly the dilemma today, pay rent?)
He painted the way his soul demanded and gave up everything. Eventually it became impossible to ignore him.
I don’t like to like to dwell on “tortured soul” Vincent. I prefer to think of him as a badass.
Lorn – Anvil. From the description: “The year 2100. In an effort to combat overpopulation, the postmortem social network “Anvil” is released. A fusion of both Japanese and Belgian comics inspirations and sensibilities, such as Ghost in the Shell, Akira or Peeters & Schuiten’s work. “Anvil” invites us on a journey through the eyes of a young woman in her final moments on earth.“
Back in the 90s, when I was reading a lot of cyberpunk, I used to say I wanted to be uploaded to the Internet when I died.
I changed my mind after watching the White Christmas episode of Black Mirror. Being made to live for thousands of years in seconds as punishment? Talk about poor working conditions.
Kenji Kawai Cinema Symphony Ghost In The Shell OST YouTube. (Gorgeous version of that opening song. Loved the animation, movie was CGI bullshit.)
Or God, what if I had to work in sales? Having to meet a quota for some crotch deodorant company on YouTube? Count me out.
Or work for scammers. Human scammers are losing their jobs to AIs already. Poor career choice for in-the-flesh humans and AIs.
Is this thing working?
And now I just realized I’m doing it anyway. What else is this blog but an old man trying to upload his brain to the Internet before the vehicle breaks down?
How else to explain this blog? Subjects all over the place, music videos from every genre I like, which is most of them, no idea who my audience might be?
Welcome to the contents of my brain.
Hopefully the internet will have gotten its shit together before I really have to consider if I want to be AI-Me.
Late Boomer's Den 
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