Substitute for Song a Day

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Today will be my day off from songwriting. Instead, I'm gonna go political on everyone's ass (everyone, like the 2 people who read this).

Today I saw this, writ by an old buddy, in my news feed on Facebook:

let me make this simple for you: if I can see your ribs, you are too fucking skinny. If you take up two seats at a plane, you are too fucking fat. Find a goddamn medium you are happy with, and you've found healthy. Jesus tap-dancing christ, is it REALLY that difficult to understand?

Now, being a person whose ribs have been pretty clearly visible my entire life, this person was obviously telling me as well as anyone else with my body type that I am unhealthy.

I also happened to read this almost immediately after eating an egg sandwich with cheese and ketchup, with a good handful of Whoppers for dessert (left over from my stay-at-home movie night). And in fact, not two days ago, a woman in the break room at work watched me eat my lunch and commented, "How can you eat all that and still have that figure?"

Well, because as my personal experience not to mention years of medical studies have indicated, it's not so much what you eat that makes you fat or thin, or even the amount or type of exercise you get, necessarily. It's Who You Are.

I can't stand skinny-hating because it applies to me; and I can't stand fat-hating because although I've never been fat, I eat what I like and don't see why I should be allowed and other people shouldn't because when they eat what they like, they happen to get fat. Not to mention that I've known countless fat people who did NOT eat what they liked, but were constantly dieting, and were still fat. Because it's Who They Are.

And instead of yelling at fat/skinny people to Be More Like "Us" and Find a Medium, why don't people just shut up and stop paying more attention to other people's bodies than they do to fucking anything else in the world? IT'S NOT YOUR BODY. It's not your BUSINESS. You have no RIGHT to judge people, no matter why they are fat or thin.

Song of the Day #34: "Try"

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This song is selfish and judgmental as shit; but you know you feel the same about some folks, don't lie. I've had a few different jobs that have made me feel this way. The first was when I was canvassing for mandatory paid sick leave in Columbus. I can't count the number of upper-middle-class white polo-shirted folks who whined, "Well if we give them sick days they'll just take advantage," because of course low-wage workers are all slackers, but you, you with your salary and therefore technically unlimited sick leave, who wouldn't trust you?

And the second is my current job, where I have to listen hour after hour, day after day, to more upper-middle-class white polo-shirted folks (these ones from Orange County, even better) who believe that if you yell loud enough, you will get what you want, even if what you want is literally impossible.

Anyway...

34. Try
RIGHT CLICK SAVE AS

Lyrics
Weddings are stupid
Your children are stupid
I can't try

Private schools -- stupid
Social skills -- stupid
I can't try to like you

Growing old -- stupid
Staying young -- stupid
I can't try to like you

Big Changes Once Again

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So I got back from Scotland last week. I miss my friends there. The post-graduation blues settled in for the long term back in June; still waiting for those to dissipate. As it's time to become a responsible adult, I'm now trying to find a full-time job in Akron, where I'll be living with my parents in order to start paying my loans off more quickly, for the foreseeable future.

There are several positives to this arrangement, beyond the financial: I'm only 2 hours away from the Alphaboys now, rather than an ocean apart, or 13 hours as for the last three years. Also, my unbelievably lovely parents are letting me use not one but two rooms, so I have plenty of space to make things.

Part of the making things involves building my studio. This will include a modest recording station, with a computer I hope to build myself, which will dual boot Ubuntu Studio and Windows (blech). Since I sold my keyboard this spring I'll need another one of those. Probably an 88-key M-Audio MIDI keyboard first since they are cheap, then a stage piano with MIDI, or, if I suddenly get rich or decide to put myself into even more debt for awhile, an 88-key Nord synth. This music store on the Grassmarket in Edinburgh, Red Dog Music, had a line of Nords which I shamelessly tested up to twice a week all summer. I still can't decide if it's worth the expense to get something compact, that doesn't need a separate computer, and comes with a zillion incredible voices, rather than the cheaper but unwieldy and cableful MIDI-keyboard/laptop/synth-software combo. We'll see.

Other planned studio elements include a decent commercial-grade flash camcorder, for, among other things, music videos. I've been unimpressed so far with Linux open-source video editing software, and do eventually want to get a Mac, so I can use Final Cut Pro and also because I just won't feel nerdy enough with fewer than three operating systems.

Another, longer-term part of building my studio involves collecting more instruments. Right now I have a cello named Dominique Lucas who needs an A string; Geoffrey the ukulele; Adolphus Accordion, who has a couple of broken reeds; half of Jackie O the electric guitar, whom I share with Forest; Hermione Ernestine the Wurlitzer upright piano; and Melody Melodica. I hope to eventually add to this collection (some time in the distant future when I have not only money but ample space) a harpsichord, harp, acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, air organ, Optigan, singing saw, Theremin, vocoder synth, toy piano, and about sixty other instruments I can't remember.

If you haven't noticed, Sneaky songs have been unusually pessimistic this summer. I apologize for that. They've been quite personal as well. I promise I'm usually a much cheerier person, and will be again as soon as I can afford to be, and make some new friends. The personal nature of the songs is something I've maybe decided I like. This is all very new and strange.

The parent-living situation should last until Forest graduates in the spring, at which point the band will come to some consensus regarding where we will all live. It won't necessarily be in the same city but god willing it'll be closer to each other than previous arrangements. I still have my eye set on Boston.

What About Song a Day?

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It's been on a brief hiatus, admittedly not because I've been wicked busy, but because I've wanted to relax between graduation and travel. It shall recommence Saturday when I'm moderately settled.

I realize that I promised a release of Milk and Cookies for last month and didn't. I did the album inserts and got the discs and everything, but I never finished it up and put them all together. So I guess it'll remain the free downloads for now. I have a couple later versions of songs on a hard drive which I formatted incorrectly and refuses to mount in Linux, but today I'm seeing if it'll mount in Windows and maybe I can get those off there and post them up here.

Oh yeah, and for those of you who follow The Alphabet, "Friend" is being initiated into the band. I have to find a sufficient organ sound before we can play it live, though.

We had an awesome show in Pittsburgh last night. I expected it to suck 'cause there was a hockey game on and there were TVs in the bar, but the audience was very attentive and appreciative and bought lots of CDs, and Pittsburgh won just as "Mind Is a Box" was ending so we got extra tumultuous applause and everyone was in a good mood. I hope they remember us as the band that was playing when Pittsburgh beat Detroit's ass.

2nd Worst Show Ever

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Some folks are under the mistaken impression that my band, The Alphabet, is famous. To disprove this misconception, consider the following:

• Last night, we, The Alphabet, played a concert in Pasadena, Maryland, at a restaurant called Cheeseburger in Paradise. It was, in fact, a weekly Wednesday night Battle of the Bands.


• We got this show because I am our manager, and for a number of reasons, not least of which is procrastination, I didn't start booking our tour 'til a month before we were supposed to play it, and this Battle of the Bands at Cheeseburger in Paradise was what we could get.


• The other two bands were called Harmsway and Less than Zero. Harmsway was a metal cover band. Less than Zero was a classic rock cover band. They were both local.


• We played last, after Less than Zero's set. We noticed as they were tearing down that they were taking the PA with them. This worried us, as we don't have a PA. Even if we did we couldn't fit it in the station wagon.


• Upon frantically questioning the woman who had been announcing the bands, we learned that the venue DID have its own PA, but that it had no microphones or mic stands.


• Parker unearthed one microphone from his bass case.


• Forest taped it to the cymbal stand.


• We then remembered that we didn't have an extra 1/4" cable for the keyboard, and furthermore that when we'd tried to use a borrowed one at our show the previous night, it kept cutting out and we ended up mic'ing the piano speakers, which worked just fine.


• Except this venue didn't have any more microphones.


• One of the members of Less than Zero kindly loaned us a microphone and mic stand.


• We began to sound check and discovered that both the PA speakers were blown.


• We had no way to amplify either the piano or my voice, other than the built-in piano speakers.


• We turned the piano up all the way, and I shouted, and Forest and Parker played very quietly.

So. The end. We made $20 in CD sales. Eight people had come exclusively to see us, which was actually quite impressive. In conclusion, we are not yet rockstars. But we will be soon.

[P.S. The worst show ever was in Kent, Ohio. The only audience members were the other band.]

Upcoming Album Name Change

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Yeah, I decided that I prefer Milk and Cookies to Milk and Cookies Room--even though the reason I picked that in the first place is it was this big, kind of creepy room in the basement of the synagogue I grew up going to, with big white pillars and a white tile floor, and the kindergarten rooms were off of it, and long before I was a kindergartner they used to serve milk and cookies in there. I was always struck by what a cheerful name had such a cheerless room. I especially remember it with the lights out. It echoed and I wouldn't go in there alone.

Anyway, tags have been duly altered.