May 18, 1980. 38 years ago today the world seemed about to end for me. I was in central Washington state when Mount St. Helens lashed out with ominous roiling volcano fury. Spooky swirling ash clouds, mid-day mid-night, trapped, detached from the world. Much later, once I got to know what was important to the cool kids, I learned that Ian Curtis of Joy Division ended his life also on May 18, 1980. I only just recently made that connection. Continue reading
Reaching Coachella weekend mid-April means a lot to me: getting past the dark, dreary Winter and connecting with the sunny warm festival world again. The live streams from sweltering Deep Desert, California help me feel it might be safe to crawl out of my alpaca underthermals and that I should empathize with all the brave beset concert-goers suffering sunburn and dusty dehydration. I dream of attending in person again, but I end up thinking about what a pain it would be to pay, travel, traffic-jam, camp, and be stuck out in the vast, barren polo fields over several days with a quarter of a million other humans rather than just flannel pajamas streaming it. I can comprehend how it’s worth a fair amount of grief as an attendee for the experience, but what is it like for the performers? How on earth does Goldenvoice pull off such a huge project? I presume each of the acts are basically already on tour and they have their own set of roadies, transport/party vans. But with ~160 acts over the two weekends, how do the bands lock into the logistics months ahead and is there a glut of hundreds of tour trucks and buses on the I-10 from LA? Do the bands make a profit or to they take a loss for the exposure? Do they have to actually pay to play? Are any acts banned from Coachella? Like Cage the Elephant 2014, clearly tripping mental balls. Continue reading
Ready or not it was time for me to pack up and move out of Georgia. I wanted to arrive in El Paso by the first of February, but to stop a few times along the way to better know the mysterious (to me) South. I thought I’d get a quick look at New Orleans, but to be honest, I wasn’t up for the challenge of navigating through the hustle-bustle. I got a total of 0.75 seconds viewing time of the Superdome as I dashed by on the freeway. After another couple of hours through the swamp forests I arrived in Baton Rouge, pulled off into the city, and found things were crazy there too. A parade route was roped off and the streets were lined with a lot of happy, enthused people. I know, this isn’t a travel journal, so I’ll cut to the chase. I discovered a (family-friendly) night-time Mardi Gras parade, featuring high school marching bands like I’ve never known before. Louisiana schools must take a lot of pride in their music programs. Continue reading
It was just coming up on the two year anniversary with my playlist on Live365, but they dropped some bad news last month. A ruling by the US Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) effectively pulled the rug out from under the entire Live365 business model of online broadcasting. As the note from the Live365 team describes it, the result is there are now “no small webcaster options except for full CRB rates.” On top of that their investors have backed out, so the misfortune was sudden and severe. Continue reading
I am set for Friday at lunchtime to correct or completely wreck my vision by way of a laser beam to evaporate the surface of my eyeballs. This elective PRK surgery, alternatively described as an industrial energy beam calibrated to char away the cornea, will permanently change how I see the world. With good fortune my vision will be clear, free of ghosts and halos, and I will not be blind. Yes, that’s the best I’m hoping for – that I will not be worse off than now with the hassle of glasses. This has brought me to some contemplation as to which of my vital human senses I would be willing to sacrifice, if I had the choice. On purely pragmatic terms it would have to be my sense of taste since that’s just for the joy of flavor. Vision may be the worst practical function to lose since that must be how we perceive the most information. But I think I’d still miss my hearing the most if that would cut out music from my life. Continue reading
