I'm sitting in the Citizen's Library of Washington, Pa. This is important because at this moment I'm staring into the abyss of a completely desecure future. My car is packed with all my stuff and over the last few weeks I've left Oklahoma behind, visited my friends in Ohio, visited Matt in Sharon, visited Ernie here by the Ohio River, and now have no more places to visit, meaning I am now completely a vagrant: homeless, and jobless. And that's a rather unnerving thought. I've not enough money to rent an apartment, so it's me and my car and whatever hollow I can find to spend the night. I imagine I'll probably end up picking up a temporary job in the Pittsburgh/Sharon/Washington area, but it's going to be awhile before I can afford a place to stay. And in this regard, my car full of stuff is more of a liability than an asset. If it was just me and a backpack, I could find all kinds of places to camp out, but that's a lot harder with a '97 Buick Park
Avenue.
But that's what you get when you don't plan ahead. Living in a van, down by the river...
This is probably the reason I was never voted "Most Likely to Succeed."
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
My city was gone
I'm going back to Ohio. I'm leaving a week from Monday or Tuesday, whichever I can swing. I'm playing the gathering music for Jon Case and Rachel Manthey's wedding. And I'm super looking forward to seeing some friends. I'm completely not looking forward to performing. I'm completely looking forward to the wedding and being a part of it, but I'm not looking forward to the actual putting of the plectrum to the strings and the vibrating of the vocal chords. I wouldn't feel emotionally nervous about playing in front of the President (although I'd be mentally nervous on a grand scale), but if I screw something up here, you know, it's a wedding! It's an actual Thing That Matters. These are my Friends. This a Big Moment.
I just hope my laid back singer-songwriter stylings help chill me out as much as I hope they chill everybody else out. Mike "The Big Chill" Prewett. That should be my record label. Big Chill Records.
Anyway, back to Ohio. And I know that in some way, my city is gone. I haven't even gotten back yet, but there's been a really strong swing away from city life for me. There's a certain lack of groundedness, lack of honesty and integrity about cities. Cities are places where people think they have actually achieved something notable. Big buildings. Big egos in small bars. Big, utopian ideas. Success. Lights. Concrete. Grocery stores. Malls. Culture.
That's not to say that cities are cess pools. Not at all. I enjoy all of these same things (except big egos in small bars, that's always a load of bull.), but I'm feeling very wary of these lies. Of course, cities are also places of respite from the harshness of the world, a dose of tame in the surrounding jungle. And that can lead to a Gentleness and Compassion. And that, that I miss about city life.
So it's going to be very strange for me to spend some time in the city after having spent a year outside of it.
But mostly, I'm looking forward to being with Friends.
I just hope my laid back singer-songwriter stylings help chill me out as much as I hope they chill everybody else out. Mike "The Big Chill" Prewett. That should be my record label. Big Chill Records.
Anyway, back to Ohio. And I know that in some way, my city is gone. I haven't even gotten back yet, but there's been a really strong swing away from city life for me. There's a certain lack of groundedness, lack of honesty and integrity about cities. Cities are places where people think they have actually achieved something notable. Big buildings. Big egos in small bars. Big, utopian ideas. Success. Lights. Concrete. Grocery stores. Malls. Culture.
That's not to say that cities are cess pools. Not at all. I enjoy all of these same things (except big egos in small bars, that's always a load of bull.), but I'm feeling very wary of these lies. Of course, cities are also places of respite from the harshness of the world, a dose of tame in the surrounding jungle. And that can lead to a Gentleness and Compassion. And that, that I miss about city life.
So it's going to be very strange for me to spend some time in the city after having spent a year outside of it.
But mostly, I'm looking forward to being with Friends.
Pissing in public
I just responded to a post over at my friend Ben Bunting's blog, and I feel kinda bad about it because it was maybe a little like pissing on somebody else's house, in public. That's just not really cool.
The gist of my point is this: face reality. God himself knows I have an incredibly hard time doing that exact thing, but I guess there are certain situations for which I do that better than others and recently it's been in the area of the philosophy of economics.
There comes a time for all kinds of companies when the reality is they can't keep operating in the way that they have. Sometimes a restructuring of the business can keep the company alive, but often it means shutting the company down for good. And it's sad. People lose their jobs, their identities (to some extent), their dreams, and everything dies. But it's also necessary. You shouldn't try to pretend that something is working, or could work, that isn't or won't. That's even sadder than being forthright about the death of the company. In the end, it will end, and your pretending will have only brought extended sorrow. It also ends up looking a bit like a 50-year old women trying to look 20-year old again. You can't be what you're not, and it's sad when people try.
But all that is a digression. What I really want to say is that I really enjoy reading Ben's blog.
I've been reading his blogging for a few years now and it's really cool to see how he's changed, what he talks about and why. I enjoy his writing style, especially the spastic rambling personal posts, I enjoy the random self-movies, I love the Madden Football coverage, the continuous coffeetable-book offering of photos, the snippets of news, the occasional dietary posts, etc. Of the blogs I've run across, Ben is more diversely himself than most. The long, serious diaristic entries are bookended with random thoughts about food or music or the building he's currently in. And with all the photos and movies and such, there's a very complete, if distant, communication about who Ben Bunting is. From maudlin to mockery.
So, I'm sorry to have kinda pissed on Ben's blog, because, you know, I really like it.
Cheers.
The gist of my point is this: face reality. God himself knows I have an incredibly hard time doing that exact thing, but I guess there are certain situations for which I do that better than others and recently it's been in the area of the philosophy of economics.
There comes a time for all kinds of companies when the reality is they can't keep operating in the way that they have. Sometimes a restructuring of the business can keep the company alive, but often it means shutting the company down for good. And it's sad. People lose their jobs, their identities (to some extent), their dreams, and everything dies. But it's also necessary. You shouldn't try to pretend that something is working, or could work, that isn't or won't. That's even sadder than being forthright about the death of the company. In the end, it will end, and your pretending will have only brought extended sorrow. It also ends up looking a bit like a 50-year old women trying to look 20-year old again. You can't be what you're not, and it's sad when people try.
But all that is a digression. What I really want to say is that I really enjoy reading Ben's blog.
I've been reading his blogging for a few years now and it's really cool to see how he's changed, what he talks about and why. I enjoy his writing style, especially the spastic rambling personal posts, I enjoy the random self-movies, I love the Madden Football coverage, the continuous coffeetable-book offering of photos, the snippets of news, the occasional dietary posts, etc. Of the blogs I've run across, Ben is more diversely himself than most. The long, serious diaristic entries are bookended with random thoughts about food or music or the building he's currently in. And with all the photos and movies and such, there's a very complete, if distant, communication about who Ben Bunting is. From maudlin to mockery.
So, I'm sorry to have kinda pissed on Ben's blog, because, you know, I really like it.
Cheers.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Cynicism
I've had this thought recently:
Cynicism is the language of the hopeless.
Discuss amongst yourself, at your leisure.
Cynicism is the language of the hopeless.
Discuss amongst yourself, at your leisure.
Matador Records loses vinyl masters
Well, sadly, I've just found out that Matador Records, an indie label, lost their vinly masters for their entire pre-2006 catalog.
This is sad news. It's sad because I'd be sad if it happened to me. It's sad because I know what it means.
Recordings go through a number of stages: planning (or lack thereof), tracking (recording), mixing (manipulating), and mastering. Mastering is the essential step where the recording is eq'd, compressed, and touched up *for a particular playback medium*. That's the important thing. Mastering is not, at its most basic, the final buff and shine, but rather the last check with the engineer to make sure that the specs are still right. You create a Master. There will be a different master for each playback medium. Vinyl, CD, DVD, SACD, cassette tape, 8-track, etc. Each of these playback media has technical limitations and so the Master must have the best possible sound within the technical limitations.
These are separate from the Mix Tapes or the Tracking Tapes.
Basically, losing the vinyl masters means that in order to cut the albums again on vinyl, a Master engineer will have to be given the Mix Tapes and paid to re-create a vinyl master. The recordings aren't lost, it's more like having a car without an engine. It's a big, expensive hassle.
And a real bummer.
This is sad news. It's sad because I'd be sad if it happened to me. It's sad because I know what it means.
Recordings go through a number of stages: planning (or lack thereof), tracking (recording), mixing (manipulating), and mastering. Mastering is the essential step where the recording is eq'd, compressed, and touched up *for a particular playback medium*. That's the important thing. Mastering is not, at its most basic, the final buff and shine, but rather the last check with the engineer to make sure that the specs are still right. You create a Master. There will be a different master for each playback medium. Vinyl, CD, DVD, SACD, cassette tape, 8-track, etc. Each of these playback media has technical limitations and so the Master must have the best possible sound within the technical limitations.
These are separate from the Mix Tapes or the Tracking Tapes.
Basically, losing the vinyl masters means that in order to cut the albums again on vinyl, a Master engineer will have to be given the Mix Tapes and paid to re-create a vinyl master. The recordings aren't lost, it's more like having a car without an engine. It's a big, expensive hassle.
And a real bummer.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Ruminations and Ruminants
If I was more clever, I'd have made that the title of my blog. Perhaps and album title someday.
Recently, my cousin came up to help us castrate, tag, vaccinate and move cattle to some wheat grazure. It was threatening rain. We failed. It rained.
Last Saturday, a heavy thunderstorm drifted in while we were building a corral (that we realized we should have built before attempting the aforementioned activities with my cousin). I thought it was going to just miss us. It did not. We were out in the pasture and as we headed back into town, what appeared to be rain up ahead turned out instead to be nickel-sized hail. I've never been in hail of any substance before, and I can assure you that the crack of ice-balls whapping up against the windshield and sheet meat is entirely disconcerting. We turned around and high-tailed it out of there. We had to make for the farm, to try and get in the shed, dodging precursor hail the entire time. Our shed is sort of a Quonset hut type structure, large enough for a combine, two tractors, and a two-ton farm truck. We nestled the pickup in between everything and shut the door and Wham-o!, the hail started pelting the metal shed, making an obscene racket. There is something unnerving about being attacked from the sky. It seemed like there was an army of tebuchets in the heavens loading up ice-balls and whistling them out at us. It's probably the first time I've ever had a "nowhere to run" experience. I kept thinking, "I'm glad we're in this pickup." "I'm sure glad to be in this shed." "What would I do if I was a cow right now?"
So that was exciting.
We finally got the corral built today. It's a poor man's corral. It's shoddy. We had to use line posts as corner posts and the barbed wire just bends the posts when you try to tighten it. So everything's kind of just leaning eschew, looking bad. We bought some gate-type panels to use as a pen and runway to the portable loading corral. Tommorrow we have to put posts in to anchor the panels and then we'll be ready to work the cattle. *Unfortunately*, all this has taken so long that the wheat has headed out and we can't put cattle on it now. So the whole point of this is for naught, except we still needed to work them, so it's still useful for that, but all that electric fence is useless now. It'll be handy sometime, no doubt, but not soon.
This morning we found out that my Aunt Margaret died. It was unexpected. The funeral will be here in Alva, so I'll be seeing my cousins this weekend. It's sad. It's sad, no so much for me because she's gone, but just her life in general contained the sadness of a life never fully realized. Not a bad life, nor a bad person, or anything like that, but it was never what it could have been and I would have liked to have seen that change. Of course, for my cousins, their mother is gone and that's hard. I'll miss her, too. But mostly I'll miss what could have been, I think. I'm confident that death has been sweet to my Aunt and that she's better for it, but, you know, we don't live outside of time like she does now. For us, everything goes on incomplete and imperfected and disjointed.
Cheers to you and yours,
prewett
Recently, my cousin came up to help us castrate, tag, vaccinate and move cattle to some wheat grazure. It was threatening rain. We failed. It rained.
Last Saturday, a heavy thunderstorm drifted in while we were building a corral (that we realized we should have built before attempting the aforementioned activities with my cousin). I thought it was going to just miss us. It did not. We were out in the pasture and as we headed back into town, what appeared to be rain up ahead turned out instead to be nickel-sized hail. I've never been in hail of any substance before, and I can assure you that the crack of ice-balls whapping up against the windshield and sheet meat is entirely disconcerting. We turned around and high-tailed it out of there. We had to make for the farm, to try and get in the shed, dodging precursor hail the entire time. Our shed is sort of a Quonset hut type structure, large enough for a combine, two tractors, and a two-ton farm truck. We nestled the pickup in between everything and shut the door and Wham-o!, the hail started pelting the metal shed, making an obscene racket. There is something unnerving about being attacked from the sky. It seemed like there was an army of tebuchets in the heavens loading up ice-balls and whistling them out at us. It's probably the first time I've ever had a "nowhere to run" experience. I kept thinking, "I'm glad we're in this pickup." "I'm sure glad to be in this shed." "What would I do if I was a cow right now?"
So that was exciting.
We finally got the corral built today. It's a poor man's corral. It's shoddy. We had to use line posts as corner posts and the barbed wire just bends the posts when you try to tighten it. So everything's kind of just leaning eschew, looking bad. We bought some gate-type panels to use as a pen and runway to the portable loading corral. Tommorrow we have to put posts in to anchor the panels and then we'll be ready to work the cattle. *Unfortunately*, all this has taken so long that the wheat has headed out and we can't put cattle on it now. So the whole point of this is for naught, except we still needed to work them, so it's still useful for that, but all that electric fence is useless now. It'll be handy sometime, no doubt, but not soon.
This morning we found out that my Aunt Margaret died. It was unexpected. The funeral will be here in Alva, so I'll be seeing my cousins this weekend. It's sad. It's sad, no so much for me because she's gone, but just her life in general contained the sadness of a life never fully realized. Not a bad life, nor a bad person, or anything like that, but it was never what it could have been and I would have liked to have seen that change. Of course, for my cousins, their mother is gone and that's hard. I'll miss her, too. But mostly I'll miss what could have been, I think. I'm confident that death has been sweet to my Aunt and that she's better for it, but, you know, we don't live outside of time like she does now. For us, everything goes on incomplete and imperfected and disjointed.
Cheers to you and yours,
prewett
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Zap!
I've spent the past few weeks building an electric fence with my dad in order to graze off some wheat we have that is laced with jointed goat grass, a pernicious weed. It's taken *forever*, for various reasons, and we just got it finished today. It works. We know because it's very easy to test: Apply finger. If you yelp, it works. :)
I've been buying a lot of musical equipment so that I can start playing out. In the past, I've always borrowed a PA system, but now I'm going to have my own. Simple, small, it fits me. Just put the finishing order on for some bulk cable to make speaker cables out of. I guess that's not all I need, I still need a power amp or a powered mixer, whichever is cheaper, but I've got the power amp narrowed down to an Alesis RA-100. It's normally used for studio monitors, but I think it'll work just fine for my needs and will be able to serve me double duty. There's a load of them on Ebay. New bookshelf speakers to use as monitors, new headphones, new PA speakers, cables, lots of new toys!! :)
Had some trouble with the bull calf the other day. He's not been cut, so he's starting to feel like a ladies' man. Jumped the fence (since the cows in our herd don't give him the time of day) to make some new friends. I thought he'd been stolen until I found him. So we had to get him back and close him up in our corral (a portable deal). Grounded! No TV, No internet, no phones, nothing for a month, mister!!
Sometime soon, my cousin will come up and we'll cut and tag and brand the calves and put them all on the wheat. I'll be pretty happy when we get this all done, finally. They're all long overdue to become steers, especially that bull calf (my father calls him "the prince"), but since the calves all belong to my uncle, we can't do things on our timetable.
Pizza Hut has cut me back to 3.5 hours now, so I'm thinking it's time to blow this town. lol. California, ho!
I've been buying a lot of musical equipment so that I can start playing out. In the past, I've always borrowed a PA system, but now I'm going to have my own. Simple, small, it fits me. Just put the finishing order on for some bulk cable to make speaker cables out of. I guess that's not all I need, I still need a power amp or a powered mixer, whichever is cheaper, but I've got the power amp narrowed down to an Alesis RA-100. It's normally used for studio monitors, but I think it'll work just fine for my needs and will be able to serve me double duty. There's a load of them on Ebay. New bookshelf speakers to use as monitors, new headphones, new PA speakers, cables, lots of new toys!! :)
Had some trouble with the bull calf the other day. He's not been cut, so he's starting to feel like a ladies' man. Jumped the fence (since the cows in our herd don't give him the time of day) to make some new friends. I thought he'd been stolen until I found him. So we had to get him back and close him up in our corral (a portable deal). Grounded! No TV, No internet, no phones, nothing for a month, mister!!
Sometime soon, my cousin will come up and we'll cut and tag and brand the calves and put them all on the wheat. I'll be pretty happy when we get this all done, finally. They're all long overdue to become steers, especially that bull calf (my father calls him "the prince"), but since the calves all belong to my uncle, we can't do things on our timetable.
Pizza Hut has cut me back to 3.5 hours now, so I'm thinking it's time to blow this town. lol. California, ho!
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