The Ink Shop

My first job just out of High School was making ink.  From scratch.  It was a very dirty job.   On one hand it was kind of neat and I learned where ink comes from. On the other hand it was very gnarly.  Basically it involved busting some resin chunks out of a drum of hardened amber-like resin with a hammer and chisel. Then measuring out a few different toxic, flammable solvents and cooking them down in into a slurry. Then I would pour some carefully measured powder pigments in and mix it with a power mixer from 1942. After that pour the chunky mixture through a 3 roll mill from 1930 with no guards on it.  Imagine 3 2ft wide, 10” diameter rollers, spinning at a crazy speed with a millimeter gap between them.  A few times I accidentally got my spatula caught and it sucked it in and busted the wooden handle off not before the machine making a scary loud noise.  And it turned a cloth rag into soggy paper.  I would often picture worst case scenarios in my head where I wore a long sleeve shirt and it gets caught and sucks my hand in turning it into chunky catchup.  

It was a learning experience for sure.  It mostly sucked.  It was summer and I had long hair which I ended up cutting off because it was caked with dye by the end of the day.  The shower floor would be black and purple.  My boss was this old lady who inherited the business when she was like 30 from the guy who started the business in the 50’s.  The recipes were on handwritten (cursive) note cards from the 60's.  Honestly in 1995 I'm not sure how she was still in business.  She was old school and was like "just dump it in the gravel behind the building"  chemicals... the place was like 20 ft from a creek that emptied into a bay that was like 100 yards from the shop.   But I was a dumb kid and just did what the boss said.  Earth Day taught me this was wrong but it was money.  I remember the old dude from the Fire Dept. did our inspections and I'm pretty sure she was giving him favors for a clean write up. One day a new young guy showed up and we had all kinds of violations and we spent a ton of time cleaning out storerooms and stuff.  Pouring shelves of old ink onto newspapers and letting it dry so we could throw it away.  I'm sure with bigger companies it's all above board but this was a little hole in the wall legacy business with only a handful of old customers. 

One of the inks was for printing on meat.  Since it had to be FDA approved it was basically like making Kool-Aid but with no flavor. Those were the good days.  I remember one customer’s ink was used for the plastic jars of Icy Hot .  I can only imagine some foamer in charge of packaging at Icy Hot was like, 'this new eco-friendly ink is crap, find us a company that still makes the old good stuff.  The good cancer-causing stuff that actually sticks to the jars’  Some of the chemicals were so gnarly though.  I remember nitroglycerine was used in something I made. It scared the shit out of me thinking it would explode if I handled it wrong. Especially while mixing it with that old fucking mixer you could see sparks in the vent holes of.    Looking back it was probably the medicinal, non-explosive variety.  It could have been for this one horrible, horrible ink I used to make for this one customer. It was  so fucking bad.  One of the main ingredients was this stuff that came in a big 60 gallon drum and it was the worst.  I wore rubber gloves all the time but this stuff would burn me through the gloves and turn the gloves yellow.  It smelled like 1000 proof bourbon mixed with rotten milk and cow vomit.  One other main ingredient in this ink was tar.  Old fashioned roofing tar.  It was in solid form in a drum that I had to use a drum heater for.  I never knew such a thing as a drum heater existed but I used it to heat up the tar so that I could ladle out the amount I needed for this crazy death ink.  It still stunk like tar and fermented cow barf after it was finished.  She said he used it in felt tip pens.  I never looked at Magic Markers and Sharpies the same way again. 

I'm sure if I ever get a get cancer or a superpower it's gonna be from working there.  And now you know this.  Thanks for watching. 

Like Ants, to the Taco Bell

I got some ants in my house a couple months ago so I went into my "junk drawer" in my kitchen to see if I had some of those liquid ant baits.  Everybody has a junk drawer right?  Box of staples, pens, tape, glue, that half of hoodie string that broke off you thought you needed to save for some reason.  But this is the junk drawer, not the Taco Bell Sauce drawer.  Distinctly different things.  Of course there's soy sauce packets, ketchup, the occasional oversized mayo packet in there but primarily it's Taco Bell sauce.  Taco Bell is a place that begs you to take too many packets.   You need one, two packets tops for a chalupa but there's a big, open tub of sauces. Four levels of hotness too.  You know you're too much of a pussy to ever use the Diablo sauce but you still shove your whole paw in there and grab a handful of that shit.  Really tho Taco Bell has 3 levels of heat.. first level, Hot. You drive a convertible but it's a 93 LaBaron.. then you step up to FIRE!  ooooh then what could be hotter than FIRE!?  DEEAABLO!!! Spanish for... THE DEVIL!!   A fucking fast foot taco place has satanic sauce.  Honey, I feel like having my head spin 360 degrees, stabbing myself in my vagina  repeatedly with a crucifix and then projectile vomit pea soup,  grab me a handful of the DIABLO SAUCE.   ..........Then there's......... Mild.   That's the one I like.   I feel like I'm rolling the dice by just being at Taco Bell already I don't need to tempt fate by summoning a demon with my Quesarito.   But even tho you know better, you grab the biggest wad of each you can and toss it in the bag.  Which is why now you have a dedicated an entire kitchen drawer full of hot sauces you're never gonna use.  But you never know!  😀    

So here I am sifting through pen caps, dead batteries and a warranty card for something I don’t own anymore to find some liquid death for these tiny persistent shits.  I find a 3 pack, and I put em all out for those little fuckers.   I wait a week and they’re ignoring the shit so I got to the store and buy a new box.  I put a couple out and they’re gobbling it up like it’s packets of sauce from Taco Bell.  YES! eat that poison you motherfuckers.   Then as I’m putting the box away into the void of faded  receipts, loose paper clips and my Blockbuster card, I notice on the back it says to replace them every six months.  In my head I had a vision of these ants seeing millions of their fallen brothers and sisters succumb to a plague and little post-apocalyptic ant scientists using samples of the poison residue back to their little any laboratories spending years to reverse engineer the poison to create a cure to build up resistance to the deadly ingredient in the ant baits.  After three generations of any civilization they finally become fully resistant.  But like, it’s exactly six months in human time.  

Make sure to change your ant baits everybody.  

Phone Etiquette Lesson 2341

If your talking with someone in a room with other people around and your phone is ringing off the hook with an annoying ring tone in your pocket its actually considered more rude to let it keep ringing than to excuse yourself in order to take it out of your pocket to silence it.

It goes without saying that you should just put it on silent in advance if you know you're going to a meeting, or movie. But this particular incident was  from this morning where a lady was talking to the veterinarian in the lobby about her dog. Her crazy fucking ringtone was like a classic telephone type but had a weird space-age effect. People in the lobby kept looking around sort of concerned because it sounded like some kind of alarm, and the dumb bitch didn't acknowledge that it was her phone. It rang like 200 times I swear.  The vet even tried to drop a hint and nicely said "sounds like someone is trying to get a hold of ya" and she said loudly so everyone could hear her  "YEA ITS MY PHONE"  but still let the fucker keep ringing.. There's sick pets in there too starting to freak out. Dumb fucking old people.

Just reach down, press literally ANY button and it will stop. This is a 2004 problem happening in 2019.

Skunk Dream

I once had a nightmare about skunks.
You say skunks aren't scary but there was a bunch.
My friend stole skunk weed from his momma.
But this song's not about marijuana.
I'm not afraid of bad luck if I break a mirror
Not like Star trek 2 when Khan put those bugs in their ears.

Anyway....
I wear plaid shirts and relaxed fit jeans.
I think the judges on American Idol are too mean.
If I miss your birthday I'll say happy belated.
When I have leftovers I keep them refrigerated.
I like warm coffee and I like it black.
Too much red meat can give you a heart attack.

But listen...
My lawn is brown and my trees are overgrown
But you gotta stay on top of these things if you own a home.
I can't remember the last time I talked to a Librarian.
I like red meat but lots of my friends are vegetarians.
If you hand me a baby I'm not sure what to do.
When the server says "enjoy your meal" I say "you too".

Where was I? ....
I like the smell of sharpies when I use them.
I makes dents in the paper with a Bic pen.
I can't drink milk cuz it gives me the farts
Why's there always one wonky wheel on shopping carts?
My dog likes to jump up on the couch lay down and relax
It really takes it out of him after he chases the cat.

So yea....
I dont always fully stop at stop signs.
I've never had a reason to have my shoes shined.
Kailyn Jenner used to be a dude named Bruce.
And writing in cursive... c'mon what's the use?
I sometimes wonder that if I was the Hulk
I would shop at Costco more and buy in bulk.

Like I was saying....
There's a ton of crumbs down in my keyboard
I've always wanted to find someones dog and get a reward.
My shoe size is 10 and a half.
And my waist size is 38...cuz I'm fat.
Everyone thinks that I was scared because of the smell.
But it was like 40 skunks in that dream and they were mad as hell.

Lion King, Can you Feel the Love Tonight?

Just saw the new Lion King movie. It was weird. I never saw the original Lion King so I had no nostalgic connection to the story. My first thought was about how humanized the animals were and that the 'prey' animals were just cool with the circle of life bullshit and must have a lottery or something to decide who gets eaten by the lions each feeding time. 

Meanwhile having a nazi style rally with all the other victimized herbavores to praise the new king to whom they sacrifice unlucky souls as the price for living in peace on the plains. A large expanse that is ruled by the governing race of meat eaters. It really is an unrealistic representation of animals in the wild and I feel sorry for the kids who see this before they watch National Geographic nature shows.

And not to mention that while they address, albeit kind of brutally for the food animals how eating your neighbors is somehow justified, they really treat bugs, catipillars and grub worms like soulless nothings.  Where's the Bug's Life movie where they're constantly in fear of being eaten or having their entire home destroyed without a thought?

And the poor Hyenas are like fucked over for everything. No wonder they're so pissed. An arbitrary monarchy basically shuts them out of the peaceful life why? Because they have nothing to offer? Because they aren't food? Because they are competition to the lions? I kinda feel bad for them.

Once I got over how odd it was watching an episode of Planet Earth where the animals talk and do people shit I started to get into the story. But even then it seemed like a cheesy 80s Disney movie. I did really enjoy the Billy Eichner parts tho. He's pretty funny.

Overall I felt like it should have never been remade. Besides my usual hatred of Hollywood's lazy money grabbing, to me the story feels outdated and predictable. Also personifying animals works better in cartoon form. It wasn't Uncanny Valley but something like that but with animals that left me feeling uncomfortable.

If you loved the original you're probably going to see this anyway so nothing I say here will matter. Even if you know you probably won't like it.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Fuck Gardening

Some people have what is gleefully known as "a green thumb"  Not me. I have dead grey thumbs. I hate gardening.  I hate planting shit.  I hate it all.   I put you in the ground, you have dirt, I water you, you have plenty of sun... yet you just fucking die.  Why are you not working like you're supposed to nature?  Too much god damned work if you ask me.  

This meme speaks to me.   Every single  time I try to plant anything and watch it die while random shit I didn't even plant magically propagates like crazy.  Why can't the plant scientists take the gene that's in weeds that makes them grow literally anywhere with seemingly no sun or water or soil and put them into the plants we actually want??  WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!!!!!!   GMO that fucking shit.  

Eureka. June 6th 2019.

Going home for lunch and saw hella smoke clouding up the sky and in the street before my turn. Then I turned and saw a few cars stopped, looking at the fire.  A smokey blaze next to a tree in a very overgrown yard.  I asked a guy stopped in his truck if anyone had called the Fire Department and he said.. "Nah she's there.... she's got the hose"  I look and its this old lady with a garden hose trying to put it out.  Karen in the minivan behind the guy I talked to was frantically on her cell phone so I'm sure she was calling.   Then I got home a couple blocks away and heard the sirens a minute later.  It sounded like a lot more sirens than necessary for such a small fire but whatever I guess it's being dealt with better than an old lady with a garden hose could handle it.

When I was going back to work I went a different way to avoid what I assumed was going to be fire trucks blocking the road.   I turn the corner and there's a big tow truck and glass all over the road.  I see what looks like a lady opened her car door and a giant lifted Suburban almost took it off the hinges.   Probably the extra sirens I was hearing was going to this. 

Just another crazy day in Eureka.
Also, Happy Birthday Mom! 

Complainbook

I keep seeing posts from a woman in my Facebook feed talking about her upcoming wedding. You can see the level of frustration with the stupidity of her friends upon each new post.
First I see a post that goes something like, "Hello all, please don't forget to RSVP if you want to come to our wedding we have limited space" A bit passive-aggressive but not outright rude. You can tell she cares if her friends come to her wedding or not and would like to make sure they get a chance to RSVP.
Then a day later I see a post that says something like this "waving at me and saying you cant wait for my wedding when you see me in the Winco parking lot does not count as an RSVP. If you were sent an invite please RSVP as per the instructions on the invitation" Clearly more aggressive than passive and the irritation is clear here, but she includes the proper information just incase they didn't understand the proper method to RSVP.
Then later that week I see a post that says something on the lines of, "...a Facebook post or liking my Facebook wedding post is NOT an RSVP, please use the invitation I sent you!" At this point she's probably wondering why she invited these idiots in the first place.
Unfortunately for her this is the world we live in now. Motherfuckers get off your ass and use a god damn envelope. You know these lazy, oblivious fucks are gonna show up all dressed up and when they get turned away complain and say "but I nodded to you and smiled in traffic that time" .... " but, but, I hearted your wedding post on Facebook" "but I ... " but... buy you DIDNT FOLLOW DIRECTIONS LIKE I SAID ... welcome to real life. This is probably why you cant hold a job you piece of shit.
Sorry to the person who was posting these I didn't mean to insult your friends but it speaks loudly about the complacency and selfishness of society today.

I Don't Know How To Computer (Macintosh Edition)

So at work I use a fancy Macintosh computer.  I’ve used Windows for 90% of my computer using life.  With this fancy Mac, comes a fancy Apple Magic Mouse.  Two years ago when I first started working here I tried to turn on the scrolling function so you can scroll with your finger (like a wheel)  but it never worked.  The person who used it before me turned off all the “magic” touch features and I was curious and went to System Preferences and found the  settings called “Mouse” and turned most of them back on.  Except for the one I wanted, the scroll function.  I figured it didn’t work for some reason and for two years I have been using the arrow keys to scroll internet pages or manually clicking on and movie the thing on the side of the page up and down like a fucking schleb.  

Today the arrow keys stopped working on my keyboard. For scrolling and just moving through type so I restarted my computer and they started working again.  My coworker asked why I restarted my computer and I told him my plight with the mouse and the arrow keys.  He said I should be able to turn it back on. So I went to mouse settings and there’s only one setting that looks like it would be for scrolling and it’s been on all this time.  Frustrated, I dug deeper (Googled) and after finding a bunch of pages that describe how to get to the Mouse settings for dummies.. I finally found a page that explained that I had to go into Accessibility  settings…..oK? ….  Once there I found a sub section in Accessibility  called mouse/trackpad settings but even then the setting for scrolling was kind of hidden under a button down at the bottom called “Mouse Options” that’s literally on a window with fucking mouse options already on it.  Fucking Apple man.  So I clicked it thinking it’s probably going to take me to the main Mouse settings in System Prefs that I had already seen.  But it opened a new window that was just a scrolling speed slider and a check box for scrolling with a pulldown for with or without inertia.  It was unchecked.  Even tho I figured it was just to turn on inertia or not I checked the box anyway.   I went back to a web browser and holy shit … it worked.   What kind of fucking ass-backwards bullshit way to turn on a basic function of a mouse Apple?  Jesus christ on a corn dog.  This setting should have been with the other mouse settings in the main System Prefs/Mouse settings window.  Oh and the thing that was actually there that never seemed to change anything.  “Scroll Direction: Natural/Unnatural”  … that thing makes it so if you’re scrolling your finger up the page goes down, like a normal mouse wheel does.   Since I had that thing on all the time when I plugged an old wheel style mouse in the pages seemed to scroll fucking backwards all the time.  I just thought that was how stupid Apple did it.  

But speaking of stupid apple the scrolling works like a track pad on the top of your mouse so I moves the page up down and side to side, which is kind of annoying if you’re working on a  project in Adobe.  I don’t want to say that you can’t turn that off yet because I’ve learned my lesson that the settings for this motherfuck could be anywhere.  

Happy computering  nerds. 

The Trash Cans of Disney

I went to Disneyland and California Adventure last week and took a bunch of photos which you can see on my instagram @kirkiscool.  But during my time there I was noticing something that many probably don't really spend much time on.  The trash cans.   Each "world" or "land" has its own design along with special themed cans for different major attractions and even different designs for the non-specific areas. I had been noticing them about midway through my second day there but didn't start taking photos until my last day and unfortunately missed out on some of the cans from a few rides and parts of the park we didn't get to on the last day.

I did some research and apparently each trash can has to be 30 feet or less from the next one.  This was a number that Walt Disney himself came up with when designing the park while eating a hotdog.   I also learned that you'll never see a cast member emptying a trash can because, get this, there's a tube under each one connected to an underground trash suction system.  Crazy. Can not confirm if this is also true for California Adventure.

Here's what I got.

Can in the plaza between the entrances of both parks and the can near the tram to the park. 

It's a Small World variants. 

     

    

Two different Radiator Springs Cans.  The RS can was near the Radiator Springs Racers ride. 

Two color can variants of the Hollywood Land trash bin. 

Variants in Toon Town. 

Different colored cans for Paradise Gardens. 

Subtle difference here. On the left is a blue vinyl cut decal. On the right is a rectangle with a white background. 

Two different Grizzly Peak cans. 

Two different Pizza Planet cans.  

Parking garage and Downtown Disney cans outside the park. 

I have to mention that next to just about every one of these there was a matching recycling bin but I didn't include them here. Most of them just had the same Jiminy Cricket decal on them or were the same design that just said recycle instead of trash.  Bummed that I missed out on quite a few I saw from the Disneyland park in my previous days there.  I hadn't been to Disney for almost 20 years so I could say I'll get more next time but who knows when that will be.  

Night at The Palm Lounge

Met some friends at the Palm Lounge last night. For those of you who aren't familiar the Palm Lounge is the hotel bar for a local historic hotel called the Eureka Inn.  This hotel is in the middle of town and has been there for... well pretty much forever.  It's rumored to be haunted and was featured in a recent movie An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn.  It's weird as shit, you'll love it. This hotel definitely has a historic feel but for whatever reason a definite weird vibe too.  I'm not sure if it's because of the strange attempts at renovating over the years and the owners clearly cutting corners on things but it's a unique place to say the least.  There's a grand lobby, old elevator a cafe/restaurant that was closed for as long as we've lived here.  I've heard it's open now but no one I know has ever eaten there.  There's a proper grimy bar I've heard was called the Rathskeller downstairs that's also been closed for years. Rumored to reopen soon. Then there's the Palm Lounge.  This was the fancy get a cocktail in a nice suit and meet a girl to take back to your room spot.  It was where you'd see a jazz band play.  It was, well what it's called, not a bar but a lounge.  Since the Rathskeller closed the Palm has become another local dive bar spot. It's still decked out in it's late 60's - mid 80's decor complete with big leathery chairs and an upholstered ceiling.  It has a stage in the corner with a grand piano. Anyway,  It's usually the place to go where you don't want to see anyone else and just chill... because it's usually dead.  Except for on my birthday last year.

After a couple failed attempts at proper birthday plans we went there intentionally to basically bring a group and take over the place but there was some super strange burlesque costume show happening.  The place was packed. Some friends wanted a drink so we hung out for a minute and got to see part of the show. People were crowded around the center dance floor which was now a make-shift runway.  We couldn't go into the game room, which I'll tell you about in a minute, because it was the dressing room for the performers?... strippers?  I'm not sure.  The song Little Red Riding Hood by Sam The Sham &The Pharaohs starts playing and a full figured woman in a cartoon wolf costume comes out and starts doing an awkward striptease to this song... stripping ?  I dunno she was taking off a costume.. not sexy clothing... anyway inside of the costume she's wearing a topless red riding hood costume and holding an axe. Hacking her way out of the wolf costume while her big ol floppy titties were out and proud.  All the while the crowd of people who all seemed to know each other were cheering her on.  More power to em, this just wasn't my scene and it was my birthday and I just wanted to hang out with my friends.  We ended up taking our party back to our house. Whatever happy birthday to me.

We get there expecting a typical dead Friday night at the Palm and there's a bunch of old people and tall tables with white table cloths and a meat and cheese platter on a table in the back. The air was thick with the stench of old man cologne, aftershave and mom perfume.  The whole bar smelled like my 4th grade teacher.  The bartender said it was a Doctor's Meeting.  It seemed like one of those scenes in a movie about aliens that are secretly living among us where the aliens, who normally have no connection to each other would meet up, kick the staff out of the room, lock the doors and take off their human suits so they can relax,  be aliens and talk about the takeover of planet Earth for an hour or two.  Maybe I'm thinking of that movie The Witches... anyway it was kind of weird.  We get our drinks and head to the "game room" to play some pool.

This game room, located right off of the lounge has always fascinated me.  It used to be a grand restaurant called the Rib Room and seemed to be pretty hopping back in the day.  The Eureka Inn has really let itself go over the years and now the Rib Room is just a room accessible from the Palm Lounge bar. It has several large booths, the kind you'd eat a big steak, ribs and hella potatoes in. Last night all of the booths seats were removed. Just the bottom part you sit on exposing old wooden framing, carpeting from the 70's and 40 year old flotsam on the concrete subfloor.  Down the center of the room are 2 coin-operating pool tables and a air hockey table and a non functioning fireplace with a large hearth at the back of the room.   There's also a jukebox stocked with CDs that were clearly picked out in the early 00's.  This was the second time we had to plug it in ourselves to use it.

We play a game of pool and while Meg and Dave are playing a drunken and high energy game of air hockey Becky and I are chilling and this guy walks in with a pretty distinct look. Tall, hoodie, long black wavy hair in a ponytail, a dark colored beanie and a med-bushy beard. He puts some quarters in the pool table and while he's picking out his pool cue Becky and I hear another person come into the room behind us and we both kind of take note as he walks in.  It's a tall guy, long wavy black ponytail, hoodie, beard and a beanie.   We both kind of look at each other and text each other. I text "twinsies"  Becky texts "glitch in the matrix"  ... Like, dude that guy just walked in here twice.  We had a laugh and  hung out a while longer. Our friend Kayce joined us and then we decided to get dinner.

It was almost 9pm in Eureka so our options were limited. Ended up picking the famous Lost Coast Brewery which was open till 11 on Fridays ... we cruise over and it's dark.  Closed. We still haven't got an explanation on that one. We went home. Anyhoo.  Thanks for reading my pointless story. 

Vice; A Movie About Dick

I went to the movies again.  This time I saw the new comedy bio-pic Vice.  Interesting casting choices which lends more to it being a comedy .  It's a very serious subject matter but they do a good job of making it funny.  I mean, I kind of felt bad laughing at some of it because the subject matter really kick you in the nuts.  I felt the same way about Fahrenheit 11/9.  Funny, but serious and on-point as fuck. 

If you're the type of person who is interested in seeing a comedy about Dick Cheney then this movie is probably preaching to the choir. You know most of this story already because you're an astute scholar for facts and recent history.  You're someone who knows all about how Dick and Rumsfeld had a boner for Iraq since George Sr. and when 9-11 happened that's all they wanted to do.  You've read up on how they found flimsy intel that connected Iraq to Bin Laden and forced Powell to tell the U.N.about it and how they fooled most of congress to go along with invading Iraq. But you knew this.  There's some other insight into Cheney's past I didn't know before and other tidbits about his rise to power in D.C.  But you're already interested in seeing this so I'll not spoil it too much. 

I also recently saw On The Basis Of Sex which if you didnt know it was about a Supreme Court Justice let me save you from accidentally watching it with a tube of lotion and a box of tissues.  Yea it's not a porno you sicko.   It's about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's fight for women's rights and equality and her life & career leading up to her getting on the Supreme Court.   But there was one part in Vice (spoilery)  that relates to Ginsberg.  At one point a young Lynn Cheney lectures her dead-beat go-nowhere drunk of a husband about how he has to get his shit together because she can't.   If this country wasn't so discriminating against women back then Lynn, who was well educated, intelligent and very driven, could just go and be a successful woman without Dick.   She could have just ditched him and let him fade away into a drunken haze.  But she needed him to be successful because that's how shit was back then.  Because of that he went to D.C. and we got the Dick fucking Cheney we all know.

Anyway,  you'll see it eventually because you like to laugh at comedians making fun of asshole right-wing politicians that are ruining the country.  But if you are not someone who's cared about politics and stuff but like all those funny famous actors, you should see this because you'll learn some shit while you laugh and maybe you'll care and pay attention more around election time. 

Electronic Musicians Don't Actually Perform Live - Fight Me

I'm probably going to piss a lot of people off here but help me understand.  What the fuck is up with live electronic music?

I enjoy a lot of electronic music but I just don't understand electronic music that is being performed live.  I mean, you made this music out of samples of other music and sounds by turning knobs and pressing buttons on your computer, so it's basically just you and your laptop playing shit through big speakers?  How is this  "live performance" any different from someone playing it on their ipod through a PA system?  

Some of these “artists” are self described as DJ’s.  I guess that’s fine but what do DJ's do? Traditionally they play records other people made so people can dance to them.  Some have better taste and can read a crowd to play what they might be into more.  I get that. But at no point did a DJ ever think they were a musician… or do they now?  This is where I get confused/irritated.  At what point does a DJ become someone who makes music and at what point does that music that is mostly pre-recorded sounds become something that can be performed live?  They don't sing or play instruments, typically.  What do they do, physically/musically at a live concert that requires a human to be there doing it?  I mean what if I made an album in my bedroom with drum machines and guitar apps and said come see my band perform live and it was just me and an iPad plugged into a PA system?  That would not go over well.  That's what electronic music performed live seems like to me. 

killin' it

The only thing I can honestly think of that they physically do in a live setting is adjust the knobs to boost intensity on certain parts, control the lights and start and stop different sounds or repeat certain parts that the crowd is into and stuff like that.  But mostly that to me is not much more than a DJ picking/blending songs in a booth at the roller rink.   A lot of that I’m sure takes skill and dexterity but are you performing actual music live?  

Help me out here.  Other than you getting off on being sweaty, high, geeking out to loud thumping dance music and being able to brag, and name-drop on Instagram, what do you get from seeing this kind of thing live that you can’t get from just someone playing their CD? 

Bjork for example. Her music is very electronic and she still did a MTV Unplugged that blew me away.  100% acoustic instruments. Traditional and very non traditional instruments playing the electronic stuff from her record.  I’m not sure if she has a live band at shows usually but this was incredibly artistic to me. 

Anyway, fuck me I don’t get it I guess.  You're all fucking stupid and I hate you. 

#fuddydutty

#oldperson

#Iplayrealinstruments 

#checkoutmyband

#getoffmylawn

My Band Did a Thing! 🎵

So this punk rock band I've been in for like 6 years, Dead Drift finally got off our butts and recorded some stuff.  We didn't want to spend any money so we used free recording software and started out by setting up our 3 crappy microphones to record my drums in Benji's attic where we used to practice.  Plugged the guitars into a computer and hit record.  Used the "good mic" for vocals and tracked and mixed it all using Garageband and mastered it with Audacity on a laptop.  It's not ideal but definitely a step up from the cover of Best Friend's Girl we did when we used the microphone that is built into the laptop.  I remember standing around the computer yelling into it to record vocals.  We've come a long way.  Still tho, we don't really know how to do a recording so we just kind of went for it and learned as we went along.  After about a year of back and forth, waiting and fucking around we finally got it all done.  It might just be because I've listened to it 1000 times in the last month trying to get the levels right but I think it turned out pretty fucking okay.  I doodled cartoon versions of us and slapped a logo on it for an album cover and put it on Bandcamp yesterday.  Our worldwide debut.  Give it a listen! 

We decided to sell it for "set your own price" so you can be a cheap bastard if you want but you also have the option to kick down a little to support us so we can like make shirts or buy a new microphone or something.  If you download the album as a whole album there's a secret bonus surprise!

Let me know what you think!