31. July 2008 by John Arnold.

Taking self-portraits the lazy way with a digital SLR - what the hell am I thinking?  It must be the product of 4 hours of sleep last night, 5 the night before, and virtually none the night before that. My Nikon D60 rocks. With it’s 10.2 megapixel resolution, you can very clearly see just how crappy I look! I’m like a basset hound in a 4x gravity simulator. The bags under my eyes are brought out in the very best sharp relief and shooting in NEF-RAW format brilliantly emphasizes how bloodshot my eyes really are! Thank you Nikon USA! Your line of products offers the very best capabilities in self incrimination! This is like looking at W. C. Fields’ nose up close and in High Definition!

The lazy way - No Tripod.  No Timer.  I’m doing this like my daughter taught me.  Hold the camera up and away from you at arm’s length, purse you lips together to look as sexy as you possibly can, drape all your hair down one side of your face so only one eye is visible, preferrably the one with the makeup, and press the shutter release.  Nothing is so simple with a digital SLR that employs advanced state-of-the-art TTL metering and Nikon’s patented 3D Color Matrix Metering II system! I’m not complaining though, because the results are stunning! Nose hairs gone awry stand out with pride! First off, there’s no ‘one handing’ this baby. Number one, the TTL means you have to either cover the viewfinder with your finger or use a hood to get the camera to take a picture. One hand down. The other hand then is accorded the responsiblity of depressing that cool little silver shutter release. Number two, you don’t want to drop the D60 because you’re being foolish. On the positive side, being in front of the camera for a change allows me to see that sweet little Auto Focus in action! It rotates smoothly and silently to ensure the perfect capture of my imperfections, and the Vibration Reduction compensates for the delerium tremens that must surely be occuring from a steady diet of M&Ms and Glen Livet! This camera is awesome. So, having employed the required operational saftey methods, the results are here. I think my daughter would be proud.

Posted in Lateral Shifts | Print | 1 Comment »

30. July 2008 by John Arnold.

I’d heard of A Perfect Circle, of course. But I’d never felt them before.

I was actually looking to download some Tool from iTunes. Silly me. Apparently, you cannot get Tool from iTunes. I’m sure this is not hurting Tool in anyway - just idiots like me who depend on iTunes for the bulk of their music. Even more exacerbating is the the fact that at my local Best Buy (no links for the Dark Side), I can’t find Tool cds. When I do manage to divert one of the pimple-faced customer-profiling zombatrons from their zone sweeps to ask about Tool, they usually tell me Sears is at the other end of the mall. Such is the travesty of living in a small town. Don’t get me wrong. I love the shit in Best Buy, but the people working there… I’ve seen more friendly bouncers at biker bars I wouldn’t throw my grandmother into without and 8-ball, a big knife, and a huge stash of cash to either buy her way out with or purchase sex from some guy named ‘Skids’.

Anyway - A Perfect Circle. Fucking genius. Here I am, whining to my friend that I can’t find Tool on iTunes and she says “You should check out A Perfect Circle.” Well, I already had a couple of songs by them on my iPod. (By the way, I’m really getting sick of iThis and iThat. Next time I go to the iDoctor, I’ll make sure to tell him I have a family history and he needs to check out my iProstate for iCancer).  But, I digress.

I am lost in a fugue of brilliant emotive eloquence and I am ecstatic about it.  This is exactly what music is intended for.  If the music you’re listening to doesn’t allow you to take wing and soar, it’s not worth listening to.  I’m a musician - always have been.  Music is a powerful coalescing force inside me, screaming to get out, searching frantically for a voice, an outlet, an avenue for anger, loss, love, joy.  It’s absolute feeling.  Mine comes out on six strings but the stream is carried in the lyrics.

 Wake up and face me.  Don’t play dead…  This song, “Passive” just screams what I can’t write for myself.  I don’t know what moves me more, “I’m dead as dead can be” or “You fucking disappoint me”… “Go ahead and play dead… you fucking disappont me.”  It’s easy to get lost in this.  Every now and then you find a perfect song at the perfect time and you become a fan for life.  It’s the in-between spaces that music carries me through.  If you’re reading this and you think I’m referring to you, no matter how obliquely, you’re probably right.

“Someday, maybe, I will walk away and say  you fucking disappoint me.”

Yeah.  Passive-Aggressive Bullshit.  Maybe you’re better off this way.

Posted in Dark Matter | Print | 1 Comment »

28. July 2008 by John Arnold.

Typically, when I think of weapons and musical instrument cases - which is not something I do very often - I think of violin cases and Tommy Guns.  Good old Al Capone-style stuff.  I’ve never really envisioned somebody pulling a 12-gauge shotgun out of a guitar case, which was the case today in Tennessee when some idiot walked into a church and opened up on the congregation, killing two and leaving at least five others in either serious or critical condition.  As a children’s play, based on the musical “Annie”, was being performed at the time, it’s amazing and fortunate that no children were hurt.  According to witnesses at the scene this was due to one of the victims, who was described by a witness as a ‘refrigerator with a head’, interjecting himself between the shotgun and the congregation.

Society today is filled with tragedy and heroism.  The tragedy of the acts perpetuated by those consumed by hate, intolerance and irrationally perceived personal affronts are counter-balanced by the unselfish and unthinking acts of instinct for preservation, whether for self or others, of those such as Greg McKendry.  I don’t know the man, never met him in my life, never even heard of him before today, but I know many like him.  They are all around us.  If we’re lucky, we can even count ourselves among them.

I generally like to make fun of everything - poke holes in the fabric of the thought and the rationalizaton that serves as such a pitiful attempt to mask the absurdity around us.  There’s nothing laughable about this story - other than the laudable attempt of the writers to clarify to those of us living in the trees on insects and fruit what exactly a shotgun is… 

Is there such a thing as ‘holy ground’ anymore?  There used to be a time that you could safely sit next to your mortal enemy in a church, even though prudence dictated that you may want to leave by separate exits after the services.  I’m sure that the anti-gun movement will add this tragedy to their stockpile of ammunition in their war on guns.  Of course, the other side will point to the efficacy of concealed carry laws in deterring crimes such as this.  If we keep heading down this road with church shootings, I see one of two things happening, neither more laughable than the other: 1) An appearance of metal detectors at church entrances or 2) half the congregation packing heat.  You tell me, which is more absurd?

If a guy wants to walk into a church and start blasting, he should have the balls to leave the guitar case in the truck.  If he believes so strongly in his twisted sickness, he should have the courage to declare himself and be ready to fight for those beliefs instead of waiting to declare until he’s safely inside the sanctuary of his defenseless victims. Jim D. Adkisson, you are a worthless coward and a loser.  Guitar cases are for guitars and shotguns are for enthusiasts.  You are neither.  I hope you like anal sex…

Posted in Dark Matter | Print | 1 Comment »

27. July 2008 by John Arnold.

The Big Lebowski…  What a movie.  I converted another friend to the genius of the Coen Brothers last night.  While the movie has its share of the surreal, you can’t beat it for memorable quotes, many of which happen to be my favorites are probably unsuitable for repetition here. It does remain a fact though that countless are the times since I first saw The Big Lebowski that I’ve wanted to walk into my boss’ office and say “New shit has come to light, man.”

Now, I’m not a movie critic, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. So, if you haven’t seen this movie (which came out in 1998), grab it next time you walk by the Bargain Bin in your local video store or Walmart. If on the other hand, you’re easily offended by a liberal smattering of profanity, you may not make a connection. However, as employed by the Coens, the profanity is not so much gratuitous as it is a defnining characterstic of the central characters - the Dude and Walter. Poor Donnie… Just shut the fuck up Donnie.  ”I am the Walrus?  I am the Walrus.”

Posted in Friends, Lateral Shifts | Print | 1 Comment »

27. July 2008 by John Arnold.

We had our first practice yesterday with our new drummer.  Considering that the band hasn’t practiced together since before our last gig in Waco, things went well - very well.  We were missing two of our singers - one was on vacation with her husband (who’s also our soundman), and I’m not really sure where the other ran off to.  I’ve been in this band for a little over a year now and if there’s one thing I’ve become acccustomed to it’s that it is a very rare occasion when all members of the band show up for practice.

Anyway, our last drummer was good and we were all very sad to see him go.  No doubt.  Luckily for us, with a major show coming up in about 3 weeks, our new drummer, Steve, is a natch.  He fit right in, had a couple of hiccups on a couple of starts, but picks up really quickly on what we want from him and he’s right there. So… for not playing together for about 6 weeks, we’re not as suck as I thought we’d be, but we have a long way to get ready for August 22nd.

Notwithstanding the concerns and the anxieties that precede any gig, it was damn nice to be back together with the guys, pumping out some tunes, getting loud and proud, and downright dirty. Three guitars, a bass, drums, keys, and friends, and a 65,000-freaking-watt sound reinforcement system. What more could you want? Life is good.

Yo Steve Holland! Glad to have you!

Posted in The Band | Print | No Comments »

21. July 2008 by John Arnold.

Shit happened.  It’s still happening.  Get over it.

Posted in Dark Matter | Print | No Comments »

21. July 2008 by John Arnold.

What an interesting day.  Secluded and isolated in my own little world, I’m clueless about the ongoings of the madness about me.  I can think of many who will sniff in condescension at my lack of awareness of current events, but I stopped caring about current events quite some time ago.  The thing about ‘current events’ is that they’re not current - they’re only the unwelcome repetition of the same bullshit we’ve been seeing for seventy years.  Okay.  Maybe not seventy.  Fifty?  Yeah.  Let’s agree on that.

It doesn’t really matter.  Names have changed along with geographical locations but the game is the same.  If you’re not familiar with the game, open your fucking eyes.  It’s called the military-industrial complex and if you haven’t learned about it in high school, maybe you should put down your cell phone and stop texting your friend two rows over with your massive intellect, voiced in such phrases as ZOMG!!! and ROFL.  LMAO is acceptable in light of the nonsense being spewed by our underpaid, bottom-of-the-barrel-pick public educators. 

Now I know a lot of you educators will take exception to this remark, but hey, if I have to prove one more time that my 4th grade kid’s answer was right on his math exam and you just failed to see it because either 1) you don’t understand the subject material, or 2) you don’t give a shit and are more concerned with the emasculation of the preteen male society, or 3) you’ve been ‘converted’ into believing that your job is no longer to teach, but to coach our kids into passing some standardized achievement test because of performance-based funding, I think I’ll send my child to Zimbabwe with a protractor and an elephant rifle because the drivel he’s learning in public schools is just that.  Drivel.  I work at a college where over 85% of our incoming freshmen students have to take remedial courses in Math, Reading and Writing.  Wow… No child left behind, huh?  It sounded good at the start, but I think the spirit of the idea was lost.  I don’t think ‘no child left behind’ was supposed to mean let’s reduce our entire future generation to the lowest common denominator.

 If you’re out of high school and clueless, maybe all happy and smug with your 1980s wage scale while trying to pay 2008 inflation prices, take a look around.  Obama isn’t the answer.  Neither is John McCain.  Has there ever been more transparency between party lines as what we see today?  I don’t know what either of their platform is.  Do they actually have one?  Do either of them address any issues that concern the average American?  As much as I hate the thought, I’ll have to actually research that.  It’s hard to be excited about that prospect though.  John McCain is about as exciting as a piece of overcooked linguini lying cold and smashed on a kitchen floor.  Obama on the other hand seems to be stirring up quite a bit of excitement as witnessed by all of the absurd spam email chains coming through my inbox.  People who can’t think for themselves should not become electrical-communicative once every four years when they take their fingers out of their noses. ZOMG!!!  It’s a muslim!!!  What the hell is that all about?  Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t.  Who cares? So let’s dredge up every despicable act executed by extremist Muslims in the last 80 years and lay them at his feet.  Let’s not stop there, let’s attach religious connotations to it as well and send alarmist emails to all of our hillbillly friends urging them ever more to forward these on to everybody we know!  That’ll show them!  Don’t fuck with us By God (Or Mohammed, Buddha, Menthu-Ra, Peter Griffin, etc - no offense intended by omission).  The ignorance and provincialism of the human mind is staggering.

If you want to get away with something, redirection is a key component to the strategy.  The average American citizen is currently so overwhelmed by the rising costs of energy that the focus of their attention is on how to make it from one payday to the next.  Who, twenty years ago, would have ever guessed that electric bills would be surpassing mortgage payments?  That gasoline costs would riducule car payments?  Ask yourself a very simple question:  Whom does it benefit?  Trace it down, follow the trail.  Where does the money go and what makes it possible for it to go there?  As a friend of mine once said, “It’s not rocket science!  Which is a good thing, because we’re not rocket scientists.”

The really sad thing is that while the rest of the world is producing world-class rocket scientists, we have MySpace!  Fuckin’ A!

Posted in Lateral Shifts | Print | No Comments »

20. July 2008 by John Arnold.

It’s hard being philosophical.  I know many of you simply won’t get this but M&Ms with Almonds and Plain M&Ms just don’t mix. Ponder that and be daunted.

On the other hand, if having to dig to the bottom of the candy bowl to get to the Plain M&Ms because their smaller mass allows them to be gravity-filtered beneath the chocolate-crusted nutty behemoths is my biggest challenge, I have nothing to complain about - unless my main diet has become M&Ms and Miller Lite, which upon reflection… Never mind that.  It’s all behind the curtain.

 It’s been an interesting week.  This being my first blog, I am naturally wondering what you all want to hear about but I find that I don’t really care.  I’m sure this will be a learning experience, and that as I become more proficient at this blogging, I’ll identify better topics.  In the meantime, a good friend of mine who has a very successfull blog suggested I write about big news hot topics - that this will drive the visitors to my  site.  So here goes:  Brittany Spears.  David Allen Coe.  George Bush.  Iran-Contra.  Queensryche.  Dale Earnhardt.  Barak Obama.  Chocolate Bunnies and edible panties.  We’ll see how that does.

 Welcome to my world - it’s kind of twisted.

Posted in Lateral Shifts | Print | 1 Comment »