Little Steps Get You Nowhere In The End (Ode To The Introspective)

We used to apologise for lengthy delays on here. Now we don't even bother anymore. Why is that? There were massive gaps (even a missing month) on the blog. Of course things happened, but I guess I felt like I had nothing to say, and even if I did, I didn't want to share it, or that time wasn't on my side.

I will attempt to rectify that, and I shall also try to get the other to blog again, but since he's still overseas, we might all have to wait a bit longer.

As usual, once per year I read over all the entries on the blog. For me this is self indulgent (when it comes to my own entries), as I like the other's writing style much more, and he has more interesting things to say.

I guess it's because with the blog, I've already had these thoughts previously, and that once I type them up, it's sort of become old news and it bores me. But hell, I keep typing them up and reading them later. A recurring theme in my early posts seems to be women and sex and how bad I was at guitar! Haha I'm up to 2006, and I think things change...a bit! Hopefully there's been good intellectual stuff also and as our by-line in the blog says - food for thought.

I watched Citizen Kane today and it was spectacular. Unfortunately I was also playing poker at the same time, and by the time the end of the movie came around, I didn't even really pick up on the change of Kane! Haha, I thought he was still good in the end! Maybe the thought of "Rosebud" cleansed him of all the wrong he'd done at the end. After all, when you go back to the start, it wasn't even his choice. Haha unlike the Bobo episode of The Simpsons where Mr Burns' childhood parodies the start of the film. I guess I'll have to watch it again some day so I can properly analyse. But from what I saw I loved. Orson Welles is a bloody powerhouse.

I wonder why there's always the thought of doing the wrong thing. Sometimes the wrong things happen, and there's no time for thought until after. Oh hold on, I'm sure I've covered this in a previous entry a while back so I'll leave that here.

I read a friend's post today about how she feels attached to the city because of the pure fact she has spent a good deal of her life here. As she's leaving to undertake further study later on, she's realised that she'll always feel affection for this city, and that her history is intertwined with the street lanes that she walks on, to the point where she sees all past versions of herself walking alongside her when she walks. I thought the imagery of that thought was beautiful. My imagination died in college I think. I've said it before, and the other has agreed, that education tends to kill the creative mind, due to constraining things to a certain viewpoint, and denouncing all others. But I should also contradict that and say education is bloody important, unless you want to be a nobody. Back to my original point, as I'm leaving soon, it's dawned on me that I'll never get to do everything I wanted to do here. I guess in some stupid way I thought I'd always get the chance, but now that's all fleeting. I have a feeling life is going to be like that. No matter how much you really try, in the end it's all going to be taken away before you get to do absolutely everything you wanted. I guess the little versions of me won't have anyone to walk with down the streets anymore. I also feel it moreso, as I was born here and I've spent my entire life here.

Now the real world is beating down on my door, armed with various implements to hurt me, and I'm unable to defend myself. In the words of Rob Thomas - I wish the real world would just stop hassling me. This is further exemplified by one of my friends who is starting work in a few days time (incidentally at a place I also received an offer from, and was looking forward to working at), and he's terrified, even though it's going to be cushy. I know stuff for me is going to be much tougher, and I'm sort of heading into the wall with my eyes closed, some sort of plausible deniability if you will. The friend I mentioned previously (the one who blogged about the city), has had their dose of the real world, and thought it sucked, so they decided to obtain a Master's degree.

To continue this disjointed entry, I'll go back to my other point. Yes, the other and I have changed as people since we first started posting on here. Many trials and tribulations, but there was always a common thread for all the negatives, which I won't mention here. This sucks incredibly, as I was always against the idea of it from the start. I guess when you get the feeling something is going to be bad at the start, you're either going to be right or happy, which is very safe. Hopefully the other is going to have a better world view than I do after all this time.

Music is another common thread on here. I'm so happy that I've become much better on guitar. It was all pretty much down to just playing and some insane practice regimes everyday over each holiday. I'm comfortable with playing, composition, and I've even taken a liking to more rhythm and melody work and odd time signatures, which I initially really didn't care for, and hated respectively at the start. After you get to such a level, when you realise you have a wide variety of styles in your arsenal, and even surpassed some of your idols in terms of the things you can do and play due to your versatility, it's still difficult to forget the start, when everything seemed impossible.

In lighter news, I recently saw New Kids On The Block's video clip for Step by Step (there was a retro special on some music vid show). You're probably wondering how the hell I could have seen a 1990's clip, featuring such an unlikeable band. However, I really rate the song. Sure the clip is dated (lots of big hair, parachute pants, shoulder padded jackets, and Vanilla Ice like early 90's dancing), but goddamn, that bassline is one of the best I've ever heard, and the vocal harmonies on the pre-chorus - "I really think it's just a matter of time" is truly sublime. It was really ahead of its time in terms of the entire vocal melody and the instrumental work, lots of funk and even orchestra fills here and there. This was stuff that didn't even really come to the forefront until several years later. I'd love to cover this song someday in a way that can bring some of the flatter parts of the remaining instruments (ie not the bass and drums) during the verse to match the pure awesomeness of those parts. Of course delivery would have to include irony! Most major music consumers these days don't even know the band, which is a scary thought, considering it's part of my childhood folklore!

I feel bad for what happened to them. They were really pawns in the corporate machine. Sure the songs were heavy on cliche and a lot of crapness, but I'll be damned if you can criticise their singing ability and melding together as a team. However the corporate machine was greedy, and overexposure over such a short time led to a MASSIVE backlash, just as they were finding their own way, but by then it was too late unfortunately. I really hope they made good money from it, unless their manager and or others skimmed stuff, which is highly possibly since they were barely adults at the peak of their career. They - as a brand - were worth well over several hundred million dollars. Now look at them, almost all have dropped off the face of the Earth, bar Donnie Wahlberg (props to him, cause I think he was the most talented one), and Jordan Knight (who staged a freaky near all out comeback in 1999). I've also heard rumours that they may reunite for a world tour. Fuck reunions!!! You take the fun out of covering old songs!! Led Zep, The Police, it's all terrible!! What's worse, is that these guys (well the last 2 examples) are already rich mofos, however their tours will sell out regardless, so they charge the highest prices, and tour revenue for bands like them are over 130 million dollars per tour in AMERICAN DOLLARS. You'd think they'd try to do something for the fans, but I guess in the end the dollar is king.

Before I leave, I need to procure myself a new slim digital camera, as well as an acoustic guitar. I guess I'm not too fussed on owning an Ovation or Martin, or even a Maton right now. Just want something with low action that sounds semi decent, so I can jam with the other now and then.

I also forgot to mention something in my last post. I wrote about the topic of torrents. For those unfamilar with the process, basically the more people that have the file, the faster the transfer rate occurs, due to some sort of cluster theory that I can't explain or understand. Anyway, most of the time, you'll find that on the day of release up to a month after release of, let's say a cd, you'll have practically 1000 people sharing the files, and you can download an entire album in under 15 mins on my connection, which is fairly decent. However for bigger files, and things you want a bit after the heat has died down, you are lucky to get even double digits in terms of people sharing the files. Then it dawned on me, it's just human nature, and I'm guilty of it too. After I download anything from any program, I take it out of my shared folder straight away. You reap what you so I guess. Take take take, but never give.

I'm dead certain that I've gained weight over the last semester of uni, as I only had one class and my honours thesis, so I was just sitting at the comp not doing a hell of a lot, which has also carried on into the holidays. As a result some of my best clothes don't fit, and after moving and starting a new job somewhere, the first impression you want to make is not one of a loser or an ugmo. I think I'll need to join a gym for the remaining weeks I'm here, and train in the mornings, study during the day, and slowly readjust my body clock to more sane hours. It's for the best anyway, I can get more done that way. It'll probably also help getting over everything I'm leaving behind. But I'm not always stuck in the present mindset, cause there's always the possibility that after I'm there for a while, I'll look back on the things I left behind and realised I never really cared about anything anyway, and I'm just an emotional nomad.

Also, with the introspective, I've noticed that there are STACKS of grammar, spelling and typo errors littered in my entries, so I apologise, since I am usually fastidious about such things. My primary teachers were correct, being reliant on spell check for too long will only hurt you.

Finally also discovered the bloody effects pedal I've needed! For some dumb reason I thought the way to replicate your rhythm so you can solo over it is to have a delay pedal and a two channel amp, with a foot channel switcher. This is not the case, you can just get a loop pedal and just keep adding things over it ala Howie Day and KT Tunstall. I have to check these out!

This is one bloody gigantic entry so I'll leave it here for today and continue reading the entries. Have a nice day folks!