Category Archives: personal

A Concept Album For My 11 Year Old

My 11 year old son is learning the guitar. He seems to like this teacher better than his previous one, because this one is focusing on whole songs, rather than musical notes.(When I was studying with my son over the pandemic, I liked learning notes, but it was frustrating to go forward, and honestly, the teacher was a bit of a square.)

Anyway, this teacher has been teaching him classic rock, which is awesome. When he starts practicing a new song, and I name it, he’s proud. For example, for the school talent show, my son played Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water”, while everyone else played violins and flutes, and boring stuff like that. My son also learned, “Back in Black”, and now “Enter Sandman”.

“Smoke on the Water” and “Enter Sandman”?

If you’ve been paying attention… somewhere… you might know that I own, and am fascinated with, Pat Boone’s, “In a Metal Mood”.

I should document this here some day, but the tl;dnr is that squeaky clean Pat Boone got in trouble with his predominately older evangelical Christian audience when he promoted his classic rock cover album, “In a Metal Mood”. It played out exactly like how you’d expect it you even half an interest in contemporary American politics — where “contemporary” is defined as the ever damning, past 70 years.)

He already has two of the twelve down and everyone one of the ten remaining are right in the teacher’s wheelhouse of 70s – 80s hard rock. It could happen! My son could learn all twelve song of “In a Metal Mood”, and then I could record him, and make my own legitimate family memory, that just happens to a contain private joke just for me.

I was going to ask if this was too bizarre, or somehow creepy, immoral, or something even legitimately esoteric talk, but now that I write it down, I’m convinced that I should definitely do this, but not tell the teacher my plan, because I’d come off super weird as soon he’d ask the obvious, “But why this album?”

The world is not nearly cool enough for the teacher to note the tracks, and then make an idle — or better yet, probing — noting the similarities to the album. To which I could only stand beaming ear to ear, while saying, “Wow! What a coincidence!”

At Long Last…

Back in the mid 90s, my friend Brad pulled out a strange small brass contraption. With a few slides and pulls, it transformed into an awkward pipe.

It was exquisite. A door covered the bowl. It had a pick to stir and clean it that was kept in tube on the side. It even had a place to hold unburned weed. It was the perfect hash pipe.

I thought about that pipe for 30 years. I couldn’t tell you anything else about it until a few weeks ago, and now I own one.

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Just Be The Best You

Scene: An airplane, with its engines engulfed in flames, is plummeting towards a hospital.

New Hero: Shit. What do I do? There’re so many people are going to die. What do I do? What do I do? Calm down. “Just think about saving one person,” that’s what he said right? Okay, I can do this.

*whizz* *craaak* *wooft*

Scene: The plane, with the fire now extinguished, sits carefully, but securely on the hospital’s roof. All the passengers and patients are safe.

Reporter: Wow Hero! You really saved the day. Weren’t you scared?

New Hero: I just imagined my mom was on the plane, and so I just knew I had to try.

Reporter: Did you know that the plane was full of time travelers, including Baby Hitler?

New Hero: Wait. What? What are you saying?

Bystander: HEY! THIS ASSHOLE JUST SAVED BABY HITLER!

Crowd: BOO! BOO!

New Hero: I-i-it’s not like that! I… I just saved like a thousand people!

Crowd: BOO! HITLER SAVER!

Howard The Duck: I think you this milkshake is for you.

General Organa, Hero of the Alliance

Leia Organa: A Critical Obituary

While detailed, I’m deeply troubled that there is no mention of the General being an avowed anti-Wookiee bigot. While influential in Alliance to Restore The Republic, her frequent use of anti-Wookiee slurs such as referring to the members of the enslaved species as “walking carpets”, troubled many. As was her pointed refusal to acknowledge the contributions and sacrifices made by Wookiee members of the Alliance. Due to her bigotry and influence on the Alliance Cabinet as the sole daughter of one of the rebellion’s founders, it is believed that liberation of Kashyyyk was delayed by at least three years.

One of the few Wookiees that knew the General well — who agreed to only be interviewed on background in order to speak freely — characterized her relationship with him as “frequently strained” to the point of being “barely tolerated”. When asked if he ever spoke up about her treatment, he said, “She was Bail Organa’s daughter. Everyone in the Alliance knew her. Senator from Alderaan. Early leader in the Alliance. She had her allies. Me? I wasn’t exactly known, and what was known wasn’t exactly a sparkling reputation. But what it really came down to was loyalty. Loyalty to my friend. That and the harsh pragmatism that we were going to need her if we were to have any hope to overthrowing the Emperor, and his regime. So I put up with it. When I couldn’t, I’d make my remark, but she never got it, because he never did bother learn to understand me, but my friend, he knew. She though. She became a real source of friction between me and my friend, so we just kind of stopped talking about it, just to stay friends you know? But after the war, I made it clear I wasn’t going to be in the same room with her.”

In Its Dock, Dread Roomba Waits Dreaming

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It amuses me to no end that my son is afraid of the Roomba. He has always been afraid of it. Watching it. Jumping onto the couch and watching it. Following it from room to room, while staying a safe distance away. Standing on my feet when it gets too close. It is this fear that inspired me to put a face on it.

One time while playing, he knocked it from its dock, causing it backup and repeated try to redock.

Roomba wakes up!
You’ve disturbed it from its slumber.
Yeah!
Now it must wander… feeding. Feeding a hunger that can never be sated.
Yeah!

At the same time though, I try to explain to him that everything is fine. It can’t eat him. It’s dumb and can’t see so it bumps into things. That you can turn it on and off by pressing the button on top. You can send it away and make it go back home by pressing another button on the top. He knows this, and he’s proud when he presses the button and makes it return to the dock, but at the same time, he won’t do it on his own. He needs encouragement.

Previously

Filmfest: Klan Revenge

Brotherhood of Death (1976)



Three black special forces soldiers (including return from Vietnam to their small Alabaman town, where the klan rapes one friend and kills another. They respond with Interestingly, the white sheriff is above board, but the deputies are the klansmen. Ends with a shot of a pro-klan billboard.

The Black Klansman (1966)



After the klan burns his daughter to death in a church burning, a light-skinned black man buys a wig, joins the klan under the guise of wanting to form a chapter in Los Angeles, dates the grand wizard’s daughter, and then kills him. Bonus points for miscegenation. This one ends with a JFK quote about racial equality.

As Quoted in the New York Times

Tech Giants Settle Antitrust Hiring Suit:

On Hacker News, the grumbling about the settlement was immediate. “I honestly do not understand why the plaintiffs would settle this case,” one poster wrote. But some saw another side: “What did the engineers risk with this lawsuit? Nothing. What did the law firm risk? Getting paid peanuts for hundreds of hours they spend on the case if they lose.”

Survivalism

Since I’ve been updating our survival pack, I’ve been doing a lot of reading online about 72 hour packs. From what I can tell, there are basically two sources of information. Government emergency management agencies, such as San Francsico’s, and survivalist / “prepper” websites. The professional sites suggest you purchase different items, but if you want a review and comparison of the different choices, you’re stuck with the survivalist sites, or at least that what shows up when you google “survival packs” and “72 hour bags”.

Reading survivalism formus is like taking a trip to a parallel world, that is both strange and familiar at the same time. One minute they’re reviewing pocket water filters and reading topgraphical maps, the next minute it’s secret DHS armies.

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