Nobody Gives You A Chance Or A Dollar In This Old Town*
Time to sell out. (Which, I've always said, is the only way one can sell.)
Google AdSense, in this case. A small, unobtrusive set of links to things that are somehow connected with the content of my posts. So, for now it's microphones. I checked some archive pages and everything in the "skyscraper" was in French for some reason. Who knows what all will turn up in there? It might be fun to see.
So, a toast to Free Enterprise! Commerce!

* Except Brian, who said, "Do you know about AdSense?"

I Need Someone To Take Some Joy In Something I Do
Wow! My old Fuji FinePix A200, which has been oh-so-abused (by me and the children), and won't let me switch between, well, anything, as the menu toggler button is dead, has sprung back to life after its most recent tumble. Actually, the only thing I wanted to change was the resolution setting, as it was stuck on super duper low quality. Now it's bumped up 1 setting and makes very nice 5x7s, so I'm happy. I was about ready to give up on the thing, except as a tool for taking quick grab shots for reference for artwork and cheapo pictures for blog posts.
I'm not buying any other digital camera until Nikon comes out with a consumer level SLR, so I can use all the lovely glass I've collected over the years.

Worst Husband, Ever
Recently I committed a terrible sin. Have I blogged this yet? I can't remember.
Anyway, while getting ready for a friend's wedding, Lauran asked me if her dress looked OK. I can't remember exactly how she put it, I wasn't really listening. Now, remember that in the last 2 years she's been on all kinds of crazy meds for migraines and they've done some crazy things to her body, and she hadn't worn that dress in a long while, so... I thought she was asking if it even looked decent. My idiotic reply: "Well, it doesn't look grotesque."
Apparently that is something one should never say.

Pretty Much
Two portraits of my friends.


So, I've been reading the B+S bio that just came out. It's quite nice, I think, but some olde tyme bowlies seem not to care for it.


Also, in a rare glimpse of our familial bliss, there is this movie of the first day of school available for instant download.

Two Sizes Too Small
It does my withered heart good whenever I see, in my RSS newsreader thingy, the recent changes to the dimeadozen site. Every. Single. Time. A torrent is removed for "exceeding inactivity" I am secretly pleased. Goodbye, Jefferson Starship! Goodbye, KISS! See ya later, Judas Priest! Hope you have a nice trip, Velvet Revolver!

Loud and Clear
Microphones are a mystery to me. Well, I know some basics--condenser, dynamic--but then there's cardioid, and large-diaphragm ribbons, and who knows what all else. At least at work I can plug 'em in, run the board, and get 'em to work without massive feedback.

These Boots Were Made For Walkin'
These.

Qu'est-ce que c'est?
OK, this one came out much scarier than I expected.

Fortified with 8 Essential Vitamins and Performance-Enhancing Drugs
I didn't think it would take long, once he retired. No wonder he rode up to Simeoni last year and made a zipped lips gesture.

Also, art:

A Man's Gotta Do What A Man's Gotta Do
Which is, in my case, not making 6 foot paintings for a while. We have almost no wall space left. I suppose I could try and sell some stuff, as many people have suggested, but I'm too lazy to try. So, instead, I'll make lots and lots of mini-art things, little things on paper, like the big things, only not as big as a bed.

{Insert lyrical reference to one of the bands in my pantheon}
When I'm driving somewhere, enjoying some premium tunes, I always catch a line I want to use as a title for a blog entry. I always think it's so good that of course I'll remember it. I never do. So I don't know what to put here.
Regardless, here's some art:

Better to Give than Receive?
I've been making a lot of little art things lately and I either have given away or will give away most of them. Spread the love. Share the wonder that is me.

This one's for mts, master message board admin.
I gave the one of me sitting on a stool playing my fake tele to Jamie for his birthday. He's a WAY better guitarist than me.

Sing! "It's a small world, after all...

In a weird karmic convergence, I recently discovered that Johnny Green, legendary Clash road manager, is a cycling nut, and last year he somehow got himself press credentials (apparently he's friends with the publisher of Mojo) and hung around backstage at Le Tour. So he wrote a book. It's very good. It reads like the way he talks. Short, staccato sentences. Not the sanitized kind of Tour book you usually see. It's full of candid statements about drugs and rife with bad bad words.

The Sun Still Shines in the Summertime
Gabe made a life-size mummy this summer, when he was on his New Jersey adventure.


I think I'll have another glass of Mexican wine.

In Other News of "The Wonder That Is Me"
My shoe size is 10.5, American.

Peace And Love, Or Else

One Night In Mid-August When The Moonlight Got Too Strong
OK, so it seems Gabe likes Robyn Hitchcock. I must be raising him right. Although, he calls him "Robert Hedgehog"--I kid you not. His favorites seem to be The Man With The Lightbulb Head and "That Crab Train-Driver Song."
Sam isn't nearly as enthusiastic. He tolerates it, but only really seems to enjoy The Soft Boys' Rock n Roll Toilet. I wonder why that would appeal to a 5 year old?

Victorian Ice and Edwardian Snow
Every day it's supposed to storm and put an end to this humidity and heat. Every day we get nothing. Except more heat and humidity.
It wasn't like this last summer.
I can't wait for Fall. Riding my bike past the orange trees and golden fields... gentle breezes... some backyard firepit action... the Decemberists on tour again...

Love Goes On Anyway
Cars get dents. Knees get scraped. Steel rusts. Bread gets moldy. Guitars go out of tune. Brain chemicals go out of balance.
It's just life.



The chords are Am Em Bm C, G Em D C, the chorus is Dm Am, F C, the middle 8 is E F Am, I'm told.

That's enough wisdom to impart for one day.

Not That Anybody But Me'd Even Care
In other news of the wonder that is me, I finally clipped the boys' fingernails for the first time in 8 years.
No, they hadn't grown all curly and dark, like that guy in the Guinness Book. They have been cut, just by Lauran.
See, when Gabe was a brand new baby, he, like a lot of newborns had long pointy fingernails and he kept scratching his face at night (for those precious few hours he was asleep). So, I took it upon myself to trim them. Only he moved. And I ended up chopping off the tiniest sliver of his little brand new index finger! I was horrified at what I'd done! It bled everywhere and he was screaming and it was just so traumatic I never went near his fingers with nail clippers again. Until the other day. I worked up my courage and waited till they were nice and long--easy targets--then I trimmed away, very carefully. Not a speck of skin was slivered!

I am so proud.

Ambling Madly, All Over The Town

Well, I did it. Sort of. I did it metric.
The last two years I've done the full 100 mile century of the Mad Anthony, but this year, due to a crazy summer (literally), I haven't been able to train properly, so the metric century (100 km, 62 miles) was all I could do.
But I did it pretty well! 3:43:37.
One thing I like about these big rides is how they mark the route. It's like a treasure hunt to find the direction markers that have been spraypainted on the road.

We had great weather, and lots of friendly people, no racer-boy snobby types. Well, there were a couple racer-boy posers on expensive bikes, but I passed them, just like I passed the freds. Only one person passed me the whole time. I was taking it easy after the lunch stop and a fat guy came past like he had something to prove. Maybe he did. He was the only one I let get by me.

There are some of the nice people right at the vanishing point in this picture. Silly wide-angle lens camera phone! That's not what it looked like in real life!
Feel free to congratulate me.

The Day The Music Died
For some reason, I keep breaking (electric) strings. Last week it was a G, now it's a D. The guys at the shop (they're being nice to me now) say it could be a burr in the saddle, but that would mean there's two of them? Or that the neck cuts are too straight so all the tension is exerted at the bridge. But I don't know...

I do know that I need to stop downloading music. I can't possibly listen to all the fan recorded shows (and other files) I've accumulated. It would take a lifetime to sort it all out. I need to organize it all, keep what I like, and toss the rest. Is there such a thing as too much music, though?

Could We Please Be Objective?
Also spending time catching up with myself lately. I've been updating my ongoing art catalog. In these volumes I have visual records of every piece of art I have ever done. Not counting lost childhood masterpieces, mixtape cassette covers and the like. I even have a section in one catalog of lost pieces, with photographic evidence, whenever possible.
There's the main art catalog, of all paintings and drawings. It has about 400 items in it.
There's a photo catalog, obviously not counting every snapshot ever.
There's an "etcetera" catalog, that holds everything not a painting, drawing or photo, like movies, designs, sketchbooks. Since each sketchbook contains sometimes a few hundred pieces, those are cataloged as single units, but the pages in the catalog have several details of the sketchbook's contents. Most of the art on this humble blog is in them.
I even have a catalog for this (this blog, I mean).
Not shown: I also have a record of all my cycling training. And about 8 notebooks full of tabs for guitar.
Yes I am that anal.

My Pride and Joy
I love to get rid of things right now. Luckily every month we have "big trash" pickup and I can put out most anything, except construction waste and wet paint.
Mostly it's old broken toys, useless crap covered in dust in the garage, hamsters, etc.
And I don't do it just to make room for new stuff. I hate buying: furniture, appliances, clothes, cars, life insurance, etc. I love buying: toys (i.e., computer stuff, guitar stuff, and stuff you can use with guitars AND computers), books, music, art supplies, etc.
Ah, the simple life, eh?