mememiner.com

Inspired bit of casting

I’d just like to say that casting Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach in the upcoming movie version of the Watchmen is one of the most inspired casting decisions I’ve seen in years. I think he was born to play this part, and can I just say that it’s really cool to see him having a late career resurgence? Seriously, after Kelly Leak and Moocher, it was bit parts, followed by a complete withdrawal from 1993 - 2006, and now he’s cast as Rorschach? I didn’t see Little Children, but I hear he’s really good in it.

Also, they better not fuck up this movie. Heads will roll. That shit better be like, 3 hours long and as far away from the FF movie attitude as possible. Watchmen is precious to me.

Finally making headway on some music

Well, I finally, actually finished a track. After years of sketches, experiments, half-efforts and abandoned ideas, I finally saw a track through from start to finish, and, -gasp- I didn’t hate it. I’ve sent it to a couple friends, and lo and behold, they think it’s “tight”, “mixed well”, “coherent”, possessing “flow” and a “head-nodder”.

I’m not gonna link to this track. Linking to it would mean that I felt like it was finished, that it didn’t need any more work, that I was ready to release it to the world. I’m not, but I almost am. If you want to hear it, send me an email and I’ll consider sending you a link.

The funny thing is, I didn’t have to give up being picky about my music or anything. I was picky, and it’s still almost done. It’s not the most amazing track ever made, but I feel it’s all those things my friends said. On a big system, the bass would slay. It would definitely wreck heads.

So, that has led to some increased confidence about where I’m going with this music shit. I think finishing this track was the result of two things: one, getting to the arrangement a lot sooner in the compositional process and two, it’s the payoff of an extended period of committed study to the instruments I play, and synthesis/sampling techniques in general.

Feels good.

Putting two and two together

So, I saw this news article today: Breast implants linked with suicide in study, which goes on to state:

Women who get cosmetic breast implants are nearly three times as likely to commit suicide as other women, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. The study, published in the Annals of Plastic Surgery, reinforces several others that have shown women who have breast enlargements have higher suicide risks.

Reading this, I immediately thought of Angela Devi. Here’s a picture of her:

(img taken from her Wikipedia entry, not from my “personal stash”, you perv)

This adult model took her own life in 2006:

Angela S. Dhingra (aka “Angela Devi”), 30 years of age, hanged herself at the 7498 E. Christmas Cholla Dr. property that she had occupied since January of this year. Her body was discovered by the Scottsdale Police at approximately 10:15 A.M. The last known time anyone spoke with her was the night before.

(From: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=717242)

Let’s see, implants, adult modeling, suicide? Not quite the glamorous life some would have us to believe.

I finally paid for LiveJournal

So, I was trying to go back and delete the prodigious amounts of comment spam left on the LJ portion of my blog (I use LJ for comments, and although I’m fairly sure that most people who read my blog do so through LJ, I actually post these thoughts to mememiner.com, and through the magic of a cross-posting plugin, publish them to LJ at the same time), and I found that I could only go back so far in the comments in the easy list view to delete them. Since I didn’t really want any adultfriendfinder or hydrocodone ads in my comments, I figured it was worth ponying up $20 for a year’s worth of the pimped-out LJ experience.

I’m not sure why I indulge, I don’t really post that often to my blog, but maybe this will change at some point. Kinda like how I have this kick-ass studio, yet don’t release any music. I’ve got a MySpace page, but I don’t put any work into it. I’m sure it will all change at some point, or at least, I’m gonna keep telling myself that.

I think the reasoning for all of this is roughly the same: I feel like a damn narcissist every time I post to the blog, and like I recently posted on the idm list (the same post that got me in so much hot water with the aforementioned soon-to-be-disclosed-nutjob), I’m not such a damn egomaniac that I think anyone wants to hear my unfinished tracks.

A Fascinating Story I Plan On Telling Sometime Soon

So, the month of July, 2007 was a very interesting one for me. Did you know that posting snarky, vaguely indirect criticisms of generalized problems with today’s electronic music on a mailing list can lead to an unhinged nutjob threatening you and your family? Did you know that making snarky, indirect comments on mailing lists and your blog about how local techno promoters show a lack of diversity in their musical offerings can get you branded as a pariah, a “hater” and worse? Did you know that some local electronic music promoters consider snarky mailing list posts to be more threatening and distasteful than someone making threats of violence against someone and their family? It’s true!

A good friend (?) of mine almost had me convinced that I was the problem, and I spent a fair amount of time beating myself up over it. Fortunately, I came to my senses about all this nonsense and have started to develop some fairly lucid thoughts about the whole sordid affair, which I plan on detailing on this blog soon. One thing’s for sure, there’s a whole lot more to life than worrying about your position in the local, temporary pecking order of big fish in little ponds.

(If you’re reading this, and thinking that it’s a lot of shop-talk and inside baseball stuff, you’re right.)