Digging the Tunes

♫ Blink and You’ll Miss a Revolution — Cut Copy ♫
Show me a blogger who doesn’t listen to music while they post.
I usually include a song or two at the beginning of each post. I do this to offer some insight to my tastes, set the mood, and hell, it’s just cool to click on random links sometimes.

Through the life of this blog, the online music industry has rapidly evolved, and it’s still changing. I have gone through several different services(some of which no longer exist) to post music up here. Some of the older ones reroute to myspace—or what’s left of it—though I have never used it for music. Ever.

Recently, I’ve been using Spotify to link my tune of choice to. As a media player, it kinda blows, as you get very narrow customization, and it is very hard to integrate your existing media library if you don’t have exclusively all .mp3 files. In that respect, you still need a second media player if you’re planning to keep your local library. Why I like it, and I choose to use it here, is that the cloud-based nature of it’s architecture makes it very convenient for on-the-fly music browsing, and hotlinking for blogs/messaging folks. No sending files, or downloading music. Sound too good to be true? It is. You get denied some of the bigger name bands with greedy producers who ban their music from any service that isn’t pay-per-play or run by apple. So any of my attempts to search for bands like the Beatles, Pink Floyd or Def Leppard have only left me with crappy cover bands. Oh well, I still like Foobar.

My only question is which way I should use the hotlink. You can either use a direct magnet link which just opens it in spotify(considering you have the app open), or you can use an http link which will open it in another tab, thus distracting you away from the blog. Personally, I like the direct link. Not because i’m desperate for your love and attention here, oh no. It just feels more streamlined. But the link with the new tab offers a sneak peak to the song, and shows anyone without spotify should be seeing/hearing.

♫ VHS Sex — Com Truise ♫ (HTTP Link)
♫ VHS Sex — Com Truise ♫ (Magnet Link)
I’ve been using the premium version of Spotify for a few months now, mostly to get access to the Android app for my phone. I use it quite extensively when I’m out and about. I highly suggest getting it, because there is a free version that works just as well. It’s invitation based, so let me know if you need an invite. I still have a boatload it gives you.

Welcoming the Brass Mav!

I decided to split my efforts into two separate blogs. Anything pertaining to my 72 Maverick project now has it’s very own blog:

Be the Change

Since day 1, I was opposed to the park occupation. It was only ever a relocation of some of our city’s hoovervilles. And now, the park is destroyed, likely for a year. And it proved nothing.

The idea, here, is that people are tired of the disparity between the Salary of the CEO’s, and the wage they pay their workers(most of which now, are in sweatshops overseas). When every outlet for your grievances is owned by a F500 company, usually the last remaining outlet is to take to the streets, and demonstrate. Because past generations held signs and were more or less civilly disobedient, we live a better lifestyle. My black friends were allowed to sit next to me in school. My sister and mother can vote.

You don’t have to be a victim of rape to know it’s immoral, or have been subject to a childhood of domestic violence to understand that it is simply wrong. Some injustices are self-evident, whether you slept on the street or in a bed. Whether you had to swallow your pride and apply for food stamps to feed your children this month or not. Where do a Man’s grievances become valid, in your eyes?

It’s true, we live a better lifestyle in general than the rest of the world. Our bottom 5% live a better life than 60% of the world. And I do scoff at folks here who call themselves impoverished, because they still have amenities like cell phones and TV’s with cable. And there are the lazy fucks living off of unemployment or services you and I pay for in the tax budget. We all know people who live by some false sense of entitlement. But even considering this, does that idea alone justify any 8 figure salary? Because the 99% enjoy a better lifestyle that we worked for than most of the world, does that justify 1% to live like kings?

We as a society could do more to help the more impoverished(elsewhere in the world), but we need to focus on our own. How can you fight social injustice when it happens outside your door? I’m not religious by any means, but one of Christ’s parables rings true here: ““Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye”.

Is there any way to justify anyone being paid a salary in the highest tax bracket? The 35% bracket starts at income in surplus of $379,150. Plastic surgeons—who trained long and hard for their position, and therefore the pay—have a median salary of $205,000. Even they are the 99%. I’m hard pressed to believe that any CEO is working harder or smarter than any small business owner here in East Portland.

I can remember growing up, and never having anything above basic necessities. There was a roof over my head, and clothes on my back, sure. Showing up to the first week of school with rolls of toilet paper instead of the tissue boxes they asked for, or have to wear the same shirt several times a week showing signs of playground dirt because you family has no soap to wash it. I didn’t sleep in a box, but I didn’t necessarily roll to school in my daddy’s limousine service. I never was given allowance, ‘just because’ money, or any handouts. If I didn’t have the $5 in my pocket and a way to get there, I wasn’t going to the movie with my friends. So I grew up doing whatever I could to make a few bucks(besides selling my body or pot, of course) so that I never had to feel less important than my friends who’s pockets were lined with daddy’s wallet.

That is the reality we subject kids to. A feeling of inferiority unless they have money to spend on videogames, McCrap food, cars, or to make sure their shoe says VANS on the side and not sketchers.This is the reality that I want to fight. This notion that you will never be happy until you make your first million. Capitalism functions because people want to spend money. They want to spend money so that they don’t feel like the poor bastard flipping burgers, wearing his work Dickies to a wedding because he can’t afford $100 slacks.

Baby boomers like to call us lazy, because at our age they were getting their hands dirty working in their Father’s autoshop or construction company. Then GenX comes along, and finds a happy place flipping burgers, living at home and listening to Alice in Chains. So the baby boomers then turn to us. They tell us our whole lives “You want to be an engineer, not flip burgers”. So we go to college, amass $100,000 debt, graduate, get handed a degree. But when the banks were bailed out, the economy slumped and now your industry is laying people off, not hiring. You have loans to pay off, so you get a job where you can—flipping burgers. And those years of being told you’re not important unless you make >$100000 grind you down as you work in your McJob, going home to your parents’ basement because you can’t afford an apartment and school bills, or your credit has gone down the shitter from not being able to pay the loan installments. And then the baby boomers call you lazy. Do you wish this on your kids, your family, or anyone?

I agree, there are the truly lazy. There are the people who want hand-outs so the can buy a six pack or get high. There are people who still push their feeling of entitlement because they don’t want to work harder to get ahead. And they got there because they were the kid who screamed the loudest in preschool. It’s learned behavior. And we have many fine bridges to push them off of. (There are always those like that that try to take advantage of and ruin the legitimacy of a cause).

I support the people who have tried, are trying and will try. Because I don’t want this to be my future, or my children’s. I’m usually the kind of person to say suck it up, stop whining; sometimes in a Kindergarten Cop Arnold accent. But just as a witness who stays silent is of equal guilt, I can’t stand by while our country gets raped by the 1%. This affects all of us, let’s fix this mess.

“Be the change you want to see in the world” – Ghandi

Autumn Cleaning

♫ Rainy Day – Guster ♫

Considering the time I’ve spent away from this blog, I’ve decide it needs a little rejuvenation. That, and a swift kick in the pants. So I’ve done a little culling of old posts and irrelevant topics—a little Autumn cleaning, as it were.  I left some older posts in place for nostalgic purposes. It’s fun to revisit less mature writing styles, which retrospectively seemed too forced and blocky.

♫ Changing — Airborne Toxic Event ♫

 

My goal is to become more readable. To me, this means presenting the same Muffinlog-quality ideals in a more meaningful and concise manner. Okay, maybe a few more pretty pictures too. I hope you like what I do to the place, I’ll be off painting the walls.

 

 

Chillwave.

It’s coming. This has got to be some of the best stuff out there right now. It’s like a perfect blend of good contemporary electro-disco-pop with that older lo-fi new wave sound. The product? Chillwave. Dubstep’s younger cooler brother of this new decade of emerging genres.

Grizzly Bear – “Cheerleader (Neon Indian ‘Sega Genesis P-Orridge’ Remix)”

• “Cheerleader (Neon Indian ‘Sega Genesis P-Orridge’ Remix)”

“Studio 6669″:

• Grizzly Bear – “Cheerleader (Neon Indian Studio 6669 Remix)”

Crystal Castles – “Suffocation (Memory Tapes Remix)”:

• “Suffocation (Memory Tapes Remix)”

Washed Out – “Belong”

• “Belong”

Neon Indian on Jimmy Fallon:

• Terminally Chill / Ephemeral Artery Mix

 

I’m Ready for to Fade

♫ Mr Tambourine Man – Bob Dylan ♫
It’s unfortunate that in the music industry, the cover bands are remembered more than the originals. This seems pretty oxymoronic, especially considering how much our society attempts to adhere to it’s “credit where credit is due” mantra. We can’t ‘cover’ someone else’s term paper, we can’t ‘cover’ copyrighted logos and phrases. So why do we find it so okay to cover someone else’s musical art?

I stumbled upon the idea earlier this evening, when I plopped on one of my old Dylan records. I’m not a huge Bob fan, so I don’t often listen to his records. I was amazed at how many of his songs I recognized—not as his, but by some other band. It seemed as if he was the main source of musical material in the mid-60′s. The worst part is, most people wouldn’t know these songs were covers, let alone that they were by Bob Dylan.

I felt so ashamed. Too many songs I knew and loved were actually by Dylan, and I never knew it. For a few minutes, I saw myself as one of those ignorant teens from our generation that never knew those rappers were sampling Dead or Alive, The Police, and other 80′s tunes.

At least a cover is more respectful than blatantly sampling a beat from a song and slandering it. Listening to hip hop artists (if they deserve the title of artist) prostitute their way through singles without an ounce of credit to the original is disgusting. Now I don’t feel quite so bad about misquoting covers.

Popular Dylan Covers:

• Mr Tabouring Man – The Byrds
• All Along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix
• It Ain’t Me, Babe – The Turtles

 

Stress Muffins

♫ Talking in Your Sleep – The Romantics ♫

♫ Perfect – Depeche Mode ♫

Stress muffins. No, I have not pioneered some funky new flavour, as many of you might wish I had.  I’m referring to the quirky things we all do when we’re stressed.

Personally, the modes of relief I prefer are pretty interesting. As you might have guessed, I make muffins. After a stressful day, making a couple dozen radiant muffins of any variety could cheer you up. The process of finding the ingredients, and mixing them in the proper order takes your mind off of anything. Your only care in the world is finding the golden brown balance between gooey and a burnt crisp.

My second favorite is running, or biking. Anything that allows you to move fairly quickly but still retain the capacity to think. You can run and sweat out all of your hate for this specific day in hell, and yet think and consider. I feel like we don’t get enough time in the day to just contemplate. It’s almost as if we need a certain amount of waking hours to rest our running mind as well. It’s therapy as much as is ranting about things.

That being said, I’m going to go eat a muffin and then go for a run.

Corn are plural?

♫ Total Life Forever – Foals ♫ on Last.FM
(iTunes)

I’ve started to get really, really annoyed with the eighty or so percent of the internet-using population who cannot spell, or use proper grammar. These individuals, who have certainly convinced themselves that they posses some kind of firm grasp on the English language, parade their knowledge, or the lack thereof, about the web. To me, it incites a sort of pity upon society that people can’t surpass an elementary writing level, and yet the computer industry has made their products so self-explanatory and user accessible that these functionally illiterate people can find their way into focused discussions or respectable sites, contributing to their deterioration.
I remember when there were a few different forum sites that used to be particularly helpful when you needed a specific ‘non-googleable’ answer to a dilemma. Now, the internet is a sea of forums riddled with users who can’t even make the differentiation between ‘their’, ‘there’, and ‘they’re’ that my five year old niece can. Many people have parodied others’ idiocy, like in the “How is babby formed?” explosion in yahoo answers. Someone even went to the trouble of animating a flash meme about it: babby.swf. Seriously, it’s worth the time to check out some of the absolutely ridiculous posts on yahoo.

As disappointing as it may be, I really could care less about how many idiots spend their time on the web staring at their Facebook homepage or retweeting trending topics with less grammatical flair than the last. My personal gripe comes from both auto-spelling word processors and the internet corrupting most Americans’ ability to use proper grammar in the real world. Folks walk up to me, and ask where they could find corns.
“That’s not grammatically correct”, I redress them.
“Is corn plural?”
“No, ma’am. Corn are plural.”

Will people learn? Who knows. Let me know what your worst grammar pet peeve is.

Christmas In July

♫ I’m Jim Morrison I’m Dead – Mogwai ♫ (iLike) On iTunes

Well, I found out how to link my song of the moment to iTunes, for any of you who absolutely hate those internet links that always take you to some myspace-controlled BS. Hopefully these will be more appreciated.

Anyway, I’ve once again regressed into coffee-filled late nights of killing time, as well as jamming to some excellent post-rock such as Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, etc. If you can really call listening to post-rock jamming. It’s too smooth for it’s own good, apparently akin to Keith Stone. (Advertising really is a bitch, when it comes back to haunt you close to three in the morning)

I titled this post as such, after someone pointed out that the boxers I had been wearing today were season-incorrect, as they were Christmas themed.  Hell with it, I said. It’s Christmas in July.  After that, we bought the neon safety shorts no man should ever be seen wearing. My pair was safety orange, like a street cone. Group stupidity is an excellent way to accomplish ridiculous things.

So now Here I am, once again anticipating an early morning, and still not asleep. The whole idea reminds me of an article I read once, which stated that adolescents posses a different chemical balance in the parts of your medulla that control sleep/wake cycles. Basically, we’re chemically inclined to shift our sleep cycle forward a few hours from the typical adult schedule. I think it has to do with an evolutionary development that requires us to have greater sleeping hours, and shifted them forward to occur while other adults were hunting. That’s just my hunch.  This has certainly been my pattern, as of late, however I admittedly have been staying up until 7-8 AM, only to hibernate until about 3 in the afternoon. All, meanwhile, Mogwai and the Doors are playing in the background. I wake up wondering…….Why is that girl so unhappy, Jim? I just want to know.

Sleepless nights can very surely turn into introspective nightmares, where your caffeine induced insomnia lets your mind wander, follow patterns and lyrics, and provide an unwarranted sense of accomplishment. It makes you wonder how many authors, artists, and creative minds alike have spent days following our nocturnal mammalian cousins in the search for something bigger, better while the sun sleeps—and you should be. During such times, we may often find the resolve we need to accomplish something. I know some of my better personal ideas stem from crazy hunches i developed in a mid-night pondering.

This leads me to another closely related subject. I feel like a lot of us don’t get the time to just ponder anymore. We zip around in cars, blasting music, and are always completely occupied on way or another. But if you take the time to remember back to when you actually had to walk to get anywhere, you might recall all of the free time we had to merely just think to ourselves. I miss having enough time to just let my mind wander. I suppose, in effect, that’s why I enjoy nights such as these the most. They provide a means of dispossessing our stress.

This I Believe, Sunny

♫ “One of These Days” - Pink Floyd ♫

Although I generally have written about my beliefs and observations on a consistent basis here, a short we all wrote recently seemed to resonate with my life at the moment.

The papers were in the style of the This I Believe essays of the 50′s and 90′s. Here’s what I thought:

As completely vague, cliché, and straightforward as it may seem, I simply believe in living life in a constant state of youth. This belief is fuzzy, imprecise, and ill defined, and yet for me, it has served as a guiding point for the last few years of my adolescence.

Throughout high school, I have observed my peers sharing words of wisdom they feel to be the most important. Their personal dogmas, like treating others with respect, or saying hello to everyone—even the janitors, have all influenced me, however none seemed to fill that ultimate void that was my lack of own personal doctrine. I spent entire days at peace—jogging down forest trails, or simply reading at the local park—but I could never find that ultimate insight I craved in order to feel truly satisfied.

But life goes on. As we got older, we slowly acquired more frames on our wall, more ‘credits’, books on our shelves, and perhaps even got slightly taller. It all seemed to accelerate beyond control, like realizing you never fixed your brakes before confidently tackling that hill whose slope was the jewel of every neighborhood child’s imagination. Screaming through the system, I felt the incredible amount of pressure which is put on adolescents these days, especially High School seniors. Our peers and su-peer-iors gave us the impression that at age 18, we were supposed to be masters of ourselves, and know everything necessary to shuffle through this mortal coil.

I subscribed to that idea. I charged through my teen-hood with a fervent passion for growing, and bettering myself. Alas, is that not the point of growing up, in its simplest definition? We’ve all been thought to think so. And if there was one person who cherished the possibility of being older than he actually was, it was me. My teenage life was spent in a botched array of books, industry magazines, and an attempt to learn anything and everything. I caught myself beginning to speak in older figures which my friends’ slang couldn’t relate to. Once or twice I even had to pull out a current high school ID to prove I wasn’t twenty. I was proud of my achievement. Admittedly, I became quite scornful of anyone I deemed to act less mature than their age dictated.

Such was my daily routine until we all arrived back from winter break our Senior year. I became aware of my disconsolate disposition: graduating in five months, and turning 18 shortly after. My actual adolescence was coming to a quick close. Realizing I had taken my youth for granted, I suddenly recalled an adventure from my past.

“How old are you two?” forwardly asked the big Louisianan sitting beside my pal.

“We’re both fifteen,” we concurrently replied.

“Fifteen? Mahn, I remember when I was fifteen. If I can give yous both one piece of advice, just stay fifteen. Stay fifteen, mahn.”

This abrupt recollection sat heavy in my heart the next few months. I began to embrace a feeling of youthfulness I had hitherto ignored. Grasping the notion that youth is subjective—rather than an accumulation of outgrown shoes—allowed me to finally begin enjoying my age. You only get one chance to do anything, so you might as well take the shot. You can’t regret failing if you can’t regret having tried. My world was suddenly filled with a sense of action, initiative, and purpose. This became my precept—my own little adopted words of wisdom to share with others. In your head, just stay youthful, in that I believe.