In This Entry: dead computers, live friends, peering in to the future and the past, Boston bassists, and other stuff
What's Up?
Working hard to get this big job finished so I can replace my computer. I'll probably pick up a motherboard for the other one and use it as a file server, as well. It's gettin pretty old. Shame, it was great when I got it, but the two hard drives - a terabyte worth of nice fast drives - and the video card both died fairly quickly. I'm hoping to not have to build a machine this time - there's actually a very nice major brand machine floating around out there for a very reasonable price. I just have to get this current outstanding work wrapped up.
Old Friends Drop By
I don't have IM access right now, and my e-mail access is pretty limited. I did see that John Riemer of several cool Kalamazoo bands back in the day including Tongue and Misanthropy stopped by to let us know that he's in Chicago now with his band Torso. Tongue, who also had Adam Berg from the God Bullies on drums, used to rehearse in the space next to Four Peace (part of whom also used to be in Misanthropy) waaaay in the back of ShurGard. This was around the time Primus was getting popular and Berg turned me on to cartoon percussion. One of the guys from Four Peace who was in Misanthropy was former Worhead bassist extraordinaire and proud Chevy S-10 Driver Matt Bogema, who was good friends with John and was later in my band Gypsy Blue with Four Peace guitarist Chris Coville. John was an amazing guitarist, the guy lived and breathed guitar and art of all kinds including a couple of excellent surrealist paintings I remember. I regret not having played with him outside a couple of ad hoc jam sessions. Anyway, you can check out his latest work at the Torso MySpace Page. You need to do this - I'd do it myself right now except I have no speakers grrrr. Regardless of my problems though, anything involving Mr. Riemer is bound to be an asskicking on wheels, so go listen to it and tell me what I'm missing.
One of these days I need to get a temporary license for Mind Mapper or something so I can work up all the interconnections between all the bands and people I remember in Kalamazoo, including places that those bands or people touched the larger outside world somehow.
Looking Back
Channeling Pete Best: I can legitimately say that I missed the drum gig in the Verve Pipe by one conversation. How closely I missed it depends on something I never quite figured out - whether the singer in VP is the same guy, Jim, that was the singer in Johnny With An Eye. They either beat or came in second to the band I was in at the time, Push, on a Battle of the Bands gig (New Year's Even 1986? 1987?) that included FAQ and someone else that I always forget but probably shouldn't. I was never really around them after they became Verve Pipe, so I'm not quite straight on the lineage between the two bands.
Anyway, I guess it was a few months after that show that Jim asked me if I wanted to come jam with them. It's a little broken up for me because I remember that I was still in school at Portage Alternative Ed (where this happened, actually), but I was there at two different times - once before I met my daughter's mom, when I was in Push, and once after that, which was probably a year or so later and was also after I was in Axis with Mike MacIntosh and Jason Gentry. Either way, I was in a working band at the time and said no thanks. Been kicking myself for it ever since.
Looking Forward
Short-term: finish my current large project and the cover for Tessa Rawlinson's book so I can get paid and get my computer replaced. Do that, and sit down and take stock. I've spent a HUGE amount of time over the last couple of months getting this whole project management tool together for LowGenius.Com. One of the 'internal' projects I'll be working on along with everything else is documenting the use of those tools. I will then make that information - but not the tools - available to the public. This will create quality, original content that search engines love, plus serve as a showcase for my design skills.
Medium-short-term: finish off other current projects including getting some stock/generic Netographs available for download; continue generating new content for that site, this one, and LowGenius.Com. Continue seeking new contracts. Build traffic and income.
Medium-term: Keep car insured. Start directly targeting potential clients in SW Michigan. Set up sales trip to Michigan, visiting at least 4 scheduled proposal/consultation clients and doing drop-ins with business cards and whatever else I might have available to use as a sales tool. Secure at least two contracts from that trip, look at the income versus ongoing expenses of life and see if I'm left with enough to seriously consider a move to Michigan, or whether I need to make another sales trip. Also, continue focusing on picking up new clients in this area; I'll maintain a presence here regardless of whether I move back to Michigan or not. My daughter and parents are here, as are several existing clients, and I'm not going to leave any of them hanging just because I've the urge to go home. My goal is still to be moved back to Michigan by the end of the coming summer, and it's already nearly February.
Medium-long-term: Move back to Michigan. Continue looking for new contracts while keeping myself alive and adding to capital equipment including musical instruments, recording equipment, software, video recording and editing equipment, and eventually even things like lights. Continue developing and growing new ideas for web sites.
Long-term: Own and operate an "omnimedia" company that handles any and all kinds of media from music video to documentary, short film, and eventually even feature-length film. Surround myself with beautiful and intelligent human beings who execute my more profitably creative ideas while I am left to execute the ones that are (also) fun. Enjoy a creative, influential, and financially successful life until I'm 9000 years old, and live every moment of it in the same condition I was in at 23.
Boston bass guitarists, butt-moving momentum, etc.
Hey, you people in Boston....you don't know a guy who plays bass up there named "Slow," do you? Was in a kind of Tool-y thing here in Raleigh with him and another guy around oh....1996? I don't even remember the name of it, we gigged once the day after a ginormous hurricane, but it didn't suck. Anyway, yeah. Not a lot of bass players in the world named Slow, and probably only a dozen or so of those live in the Boston area, so holler if you run across him or pass the site on to him or whatever.
How about that President Obama, eh? I have to confess I'm really feeling the "get off your butt" momentum. I've got a lot of good little ideas that I can put together in to good big ideas, and I've been waiting long enough to get it done. One small step at a time and all that...but I look forward to what I'll be able to create when I can afford to create. I've not always been a boy scout, but I've changed a lot of lives for the better, too, and the more creative I can be, the more opportunities I'll have to do that again and more often.
Who could really want anything more than that from life?
