Archive for 2003

Y’all may remember from previous tirades that I’ve been bothered a lot by spammers trying to flood my comments with links.  The goal of these spammers is always the same, whether they choose to use brute-force methods or take a more personal approach.  They want to insert links into as many pages as they can, in order to increase their page-rank on Google and thereby drive more traffic to their sites selling penis-enlargement pills or what have you.  Well, one of my readers turned me on to a plugin for Movable Type called MT-Blacklist… we’ve talked about it in the comments but I think it’s so cool that I want to showcase it in its own post so more people will know about it.  The short explanation is that it prevents comments spam and trackbacks from being submitted.  It’s about the most elegant and easy to use plugin I’ve seen, and a cinch to install too.  I really think all MT users should install it immediately, for their own protection and for the greater good of the blogging community as well.

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John’s back home now, he spent the last three days at his family reunion thing outside of Cleveland.  I’m glad he’s back ‘cuz I was bored shitless and the cats were bouncing off the walls all weekend too.  Watching baseball isn’t nearly as much fun when you’re all by yourself!  Of course today’s game was nothing to cheer about, but at least it means they’re coming back to Chicago and will have the home-field advantage.  Speaking of home, I’m very glad to report that Daddy’s back in San Antonio now after spending many weeks in a rehab center in Sacramento recovering from his surgery.  He’s pretty worn out from the travelling, but he sounds very relieved to be outta there and back where he should be.  So, things are good.  I have another new tune or two brewing in the kettle and hopefully will get them demo’ed this week, and maybe my new guitar will arrive?  Hope so anyway.  I can’t wait for Rian to get home from touring; I’m getting antsy to start recording that 4th album!  Hopefully he’ll dig the new tunes and we won’t have to wait much longer.  God knows what he has in mind for me this time. I’d love to record at Electrical again but Steve’s a busy man so we’ll have to wait and see if that’s even possible.

The Breast Cancer Site needs your cost-free daily clicks in October to reach a goal of funding 250 mammograms for women in need — this is a double funding month…

Cubs win again!!!!  Horns are honking, firecrackers are going off in our neighborhood, people are shrieking and yelling.  Are we going to the freakin’ World Series?  Can someone explain what is going on here?  I wish I could read some kind of Baseball for Dummies type thing.  From what I understand, tomorrow’s game will decide it, but if we win, are we really going and who are we up against?  This is so exciting and I barely know what’s going on!!!

I’m transferring lyrics from my tattered old blue notebook into my digital Circus Ponies notebook, just in case I lose it or something awful happens.  I sure wish I could find software like that for Linux!!  Anyway… I have at least **41** songs that haven’t appeared on any records yet. Maybe even more that I forgot to put in here.  Lots of them are crap, but you’d think there’d be at least ten or twelve decent ones in there?  I think I’m getting a lot closer to being ready to record a new album than I thought I was.  Still, I want MORE.  More songs, better songs, newer songs.  I know I’ll be using lots of old ones for the next album (that’s always the case) but I want to make sure I have lots of new stuff to choose from too.

SIGMATROPIC: Sixteen Haiku & Other Stories
©2003 Hitch-Hyke (Greece) / Tongue Master (U.K.)
More info • Purchase at Amazon

I did vocals on the track “Haiku 8″. I also sang on “Haiku 1″ which is included on the limited edition bonus disc. Also, my version of “Haiku 4″ is included in the #13 issue of Comes With A Smile magazine (more info). AND, there’s a limited edition 12″ single with yet another track of mine! :-)

Other featured singers include Robert Wyatt, Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab), Alejandro Escovedo, Mark Eitzel, Cat Power, Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Howe Gelb (Giant Sand), Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate) and many, many more…

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Cubs win again!!!!  Helluva game, it went into eleven innings.  They are kicking ASS!!!!  Way to go Cubbies!!!!!

YEAH!!!  OWWWW!!!!!!!!  WOOOO-HOOO!!!!!!

clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap!!!!

It will make you Hungry Like The Wolf… for reading!

http://www.duranduran.com/bookclub/

(courtesy of Scott Hartley)

I finished another tune!!  Yay.  (It’s called "Good To Know".) So now I have two to play for Rian when he gets back, and only eight or ten more to get written.  Heheh… maybe I can get one or two more done I hope?

John and I have been watching the playoffs every night.  Last night against the Marlins was a real nail-biter, but we ended up losing… tonight we’re whippin’ ‘em like a sorry mule.  They must have partied too hard last night!  There was a funny column in the Sun-Times today about all this hoopla.  Being a Cub fan is an exercise in futility… whole generations growing up loving a dog of a team.  We KNOW they’re total losers, and we love them anyway, it’s just part of the fun.  Now that they’re actually winning, it’s a joyous event for Chicago sports, but what’s it going to be like to follow a winning team when we’re so attached to them as losers?  Let’s just say for the sake of argument that they keep on winning here, and go to the World Series and win that — yeah right!!  I just can’t imagine this.  It would be awesome for the city — it’s already brought in millions of dollars, and Wrigleyville is looking like Times Square on New Year’s Eve every time we have a home game.  It’s just so much fun, I’m tickled to death they’re doing so well.  And I’m not even a big fan normally, just getting swept up in the excitement.  God bless America!!

Why do people keep posting hateful comments here?  I get at least one or two of these every week.  That last entry garnered a response from somebody who feels I’m the most uninteresting person ever, and that if I play guitar as well as I write, he feels sorry for me.  I assume it’s a guy anyway.  I banned him via htaccess but who knows, he’ll probably come back with another IP.  The thing is, I’m not really trying to be interesting here.  If I was, I don’t think I’d have a blog because I don’t consider what I have to say as being very interesting… I’m just writing for the sake of writing, not to entertain people.  My records are for entertaining, thank you very much.  Another one that’s been ticking me off from a few weeks ago is the gal who posted a comment to the "I hate my hair" post (maybe the silliest post I’ve ever written, it’s almost two years old now) telling me I should just cut my bangs and shut the hell up.  Why do people want to be mean to me?  I don’t think I’m putting on airs or anything, I’m just fucking living my life and I happen to be writing about it.  Go away, assholes.  I won’t let your snarky comments appear on my site, so why do you bother posting?  Just fuck off and die and stop bumming me out with your negativity.

So… omigod.  I now have a brand new amplifier, and my Dream Guitar is on its way and will be in my hot little hands in just a week or two.  Whoo-hoo!!!!!!!!!!  It’s been a long couple of days for me.  I went through a little bit of flip-flopping while I was researching guitars, but not too bad… looking at the spec sheets I couldn’t make up my mind whether a stock model 335 would be alright, or whether I wanted the 345, which is basically the same thing with slightly different hardware, binding, inlay etc.  I was even thinking I might really need a custom jobbie, I just wasn’t sure.  I went to several more guitar stores to check around and see what’s out there.  I even went back to Different Strummer to see if they’d be interested in special-ordering what I wanted, but they really only work with the acoustics, not the electrics.  So I ended up just going back to Make’n Music (the proper spelling, not "Makin’" like I thought!).  Glad I did!!

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So, Clay wants me to post the tracklist for the mix CD I made for the Rock For Kids auction.  Lots of these songs have appeared on other mixtapes I’ve made, but as I told Clay my tastes haven’t changed much in the past 10 years or so.  :-) You’ll notice most of the songs center around love, loneliness, heartbreak etc…. I’m not trying to make any statements about my mental health, it’s just the kind of songs I tend to like.  It’s funny… so many of my mixtapes end with "Love Leaks Out" by the Residents.  I guess it’s just because it’s a minute long and I’m trying to fill up the tape with something I like.  Anyway, here ’tis…

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Today (=yesterday) was my day to admire, think about and attend to many beautiful stringed instruments, some that I own and many that I don’t.  I usually take my instruments for granted so it’s about time I put some thought into it.  I have lots of instruments all over the house, all in various stages of disrepair. Most are at least in playable condition but two are not — a nice fiddle that a friend gave me, and my grandmother’s Hawaiian ukelele.  The fiddle seems to be in reasonably good shape, it only needs a new bridge.  The uke is a more beautiful instrument but is in much worse shape… it needs its bridge reattached, and new tuning pegs… also there’s a crack in the body on the front, and the back of the body is starting to separate from the binding, which is not good at all.  I’m not sure if that can be fixed without spending more money than the thing is worth, but we’ll see.  It does have great sentimental value so I’ll do whatever I can to save it.

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I just heard a big car crash on our corner.  It’s 3 in the morning… I ran outside with my cellphone and the police were already pulling up, so I went back in.  Please don’t let anybody be hurt!!  Boy… I don’t know how they got there so fast but I’m glad they did!!  Scared the shit out of me.