Sticking in the guitar vein....

Yes, the answer to the title is a half plunged heroin needle, but that is not important right now. What is important is more pertinent guitar information. Everyone is sorely lacking in a fairly decent sized portion of guitar information nearly every waking moment of the day, as studies have shown (cite lost). I stumbled upon a list today of the seven worst guitar solos ever as picked by that true bastion of music, Spike TV. The list was almost completely pointless, saying Kurt Cobain "didn't have any guitar chops" (highly debatable) and equating Lenny Kravitz to the nadir of guitar playing (I've seem him live, he can phukin' play... and his drummer is hot, so win/win, right?). The article was grating against my better judgment so much that I almost quite reading it. But everyone out there knows that I am not the quitting type. Thankfully, #1 did make it all worth it. I embed for the joy of all, the true pinnacle of guitar solo suck brought to you by none other than Mr Fred "That Douche Bag from Limpbiskit"Durst. Enjoy and please be as honest as you can in your comments. Fred is listening...

The Elusive Satch-Chris Martin Link...

Alright, I may be a few days late on this story, but I had to throw it out there. Apparently, if mine eyes have seen the proper glory, Joe "Satch" Satriani is amassing a lawsuit against one of my current guilty-pleasures, Coldplay (Please, don't hate me, it's just soooo damn catchy. I guess I drank the wrong Kool-aid... or maybe it's that damn Vitamin Water) saying that the hit melody of Coldplay's multi-Grammy nominated hit "Viva La Vida" (the actual song, not the whole album) was plagiarized from Satch's early... ummmmm... song(?) "If I Could Fly" off the 2004 smash, um, album "Is There Love In Space" (I know I bought two copies, in case I wore one out). Now, I am going to first off say that, yes, I have heard "Viva La Vida" a great number of times and that I have just sat through approximately ten minutes of the Satch ditty "If I Could Fly" on various Youtube.com videos. The first was the full 6:30 album cut set to what a believe was a wedding slide show that one of my Parasitology guest lecturers in medical school would of put together if they were stuck in Minot, North Dekota and only hap a laptop running Windows 3.1, a scanner, and the last 25 years of Guitar World back issues for media. Yes, it is that good. The second was a Romanian band named the Adi Manolovici Syndikate playing a cover of "If I Could Fly" live at the R&B Club Sibiu on mar. 2008, and yes, that information is completely cut and pasted from the actual youtube video because I am willing to do that, yet not provide a proper link because, truthfully, Joe Satriani is not for the casual listener. Those adventurous enough may seek these videos out on their own... quite easily, but I will not promote people listening to washed-up, virtuoso guitatists who obviously did not invest their money very well and are now grasping at straws, let alone a Romanian band that actually covers the former. Trust me, this is for your own good.

The Verdict:

I know that you are all eagerly awaiting the verdict on this historic litigation. That is why I have called myself as an expert witness to clear up this mess once and for all... and thus be the law of the land... maybe. I'm really not secure enough to even fake that kind of confidence. I will say this, the first minute or two of the Satriani song do resemble the initially heard verse and chorus of Coldplay's "Viva La Vida". As far as after the intro.... hmmmm.... to be honest with all of you, I rarely make it through more that a minute of any Satch song (except Summer Song, of course) without kinda fading out and thinking about the nuns that taught me in grade school or Top Withens in England or any god damned thing because I get sooooooooo bored. I recognize that Joe Satriani is a great musical talent, but I find the majority of things that are in his oevre seem to be a bit relentless and tedious. I figure it's similar to what would be heard if we had recordings of J.S. Bach dinking around on the harpsichord drunk in front of his friends. I'm sure it would be brilliant, but it wouldn't keep any one's attention for more than a few minutes before someone in the room would shout out "Play Allegro #2 from the French Suites" and Bach would have to go back to performing his rigid, God-praising compositions. But, that is kind of the point of composition. To have a beginning, a middle, and an end without a bunch of scalar wanking going on. I mean, I can listen to a nine minute Frank Zappa guitar instrumental, but he was a genius musician and he was freaking insane. That keeps it interesting. Satch has done some good things, but it's mired in a virtual cesspool of everything else, if you get my not-too-cryptic drift. Thus, I guess my verdict is inconclusive. It depends on how many people picked for the jury are as bored as I am...

The Aftermath:

And that's not even the worst part. I would like you all to think of what would happen if Mr. Satriani was to win this case. Sure, it may be a victory for one apparently unfortunately down and out virtuoso guitarist/composer, but think of the horrible precedent it may set. If one would go back through all of the demos, outtakes, B-sides, home-recordings, etc. of a man like Joe Satriani, one could probably find the melody to every poplular tune ever written in the last two centuries. This would mean endless musical litigation with an endless number of people being forced to hear hours of wanking on guitar... and this is not even touching Steve Vai's catalog yet {shudder}.

I leave you with the original news story link from which I got the basic information on this lawsuit. That should prove my point..... and I will try and follow this and keep y'all posted. Happy Holidays.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081205/music_nm/us_coldplay_1

Blog-block...

So, I must say that in the last few weeks, I have had plenty to say and I have wanted to post some blogs. Unfortunately, every time I actually sit down to start typing my meaningless drivel, I go completely blank. I do not have a good explanation for this. My head just seems to let ideas fly through it without leaving enough residual information to produce any worthwhile, half-arsed rants or quasi-cohesive arguments. I don't know, maybe it's the drugs... or the fact that I should carry around a little notebook. I'll investigate and start trying to actually use this thing. Hope everyone had a good first winter holiday and is preparing for a good second winter holiday. Arrividerci...

East of NYC on the Freeway

flying feet above
the twisted tanked ground rolls
on and on and off and on
to the big one
the central locus
the time of departure
the cars and metal and music and noting
another 1200 miles and another bed unfamiliar
left to air rot in the closing of the evening
brake park stop ride break
the tolls are coming
expensive and left of center
cash hidden but paid
pocketed
no one notices
no one watches
inflated gas and drunkin' donuts
as we speed off into
the vast oblivion
of New York City

Man, I've let this go...

Hey, y'all... if anyone is still paying attention after I have left a good month go by without a post. I haven't posted in awhile. I have no good reason for this. Well, I have been a bit busy and a bit travel-y and a bit out of my head, but that ain't no excuse, god dammit. Can I say "god dammit"? I figure the religious types out there shouldn't be offended because I didn't capitalize "god". Well, it might offend the polytheists. Do polytheists get offended. I picture someone saying "Hey, that outrages 42% of my gods!!!" and then hitting me in the face.

Anyways, I do need to keep doing this if the exercise is going to work, so it's time to set some high school-esque deadlines on this shizznit. I will post one quasi-meaningful blog a week. This may be out of my range of capabilities, but I haven't challenged myself in awhile, so it will probably be good for my character. I have things to say and I believe saying them may help my head out. Hope they are amusing. I know I have my fingers crossed. Until more meaning hits my head............

Small song break...

I found a great song by a great man today and I wanted to share it with the world. I also want to buy the world a coke to help them enjoy the moment, but I ain't made of that kind of money. It's hard to be worth buying-the-world-a-coke-type money in these harsh economic times. Maybe not... I guess I need to research a little. Anywho, if anyone is offended by a few "blue" words and a somewhat mean acoustic guitar, I recommend not watching the video. The language is NSFW environments... unless you got headphones... Enjoy!

...ve decided to lea...

Welcome back to this touching, multi-part miniseries of J Mo's personal improvement feed. I can't let this go too long or I may bore myself in continuing to write this drivel, but I have made my first decision on what I am going to start and finish.

Drum roll, please.....

Alright, it's not really that exciting. But, hell, in my opinion, very little is truly exciting. Probably the reason I feel bored most the time. Yet, I digress. I have decided to learn th Agustin Barrios song "Julia Florida" all the way through on guitar. Yes, I know, both astonishing and regime changing. Well, I am just trying to start somewhere and I really like this song. It's quite pleasant. Also, learning the first few pages of a classical guitar song and then not finishing it was one of the first routine behaviors that hallmarked this blessed state I am in right now, so I figure to do that psycho-bull shiat way and try to start at the earliest known memory. That's what they do, right? I may be making this entirely up.

On a related side note, the song "Julia Florida" is what is referred to in Latin American culture as a barcarola. The most literal translation of this is "boat song" and, as an idiom, it refers to a type of love song that proper gentlemen around the turn of the century and before the second world war would play to woo women while they were taking leisurely sojourns on boats. For some reason, this brings to my mind an image of a pussycat and an owl playing a banjo. Was this a nursery rhyme or am I just that insane? Anyways, the song is quite loverly and I hope, someday, to be able to play the whole thing for a woman on a boat... perhaps next Tuesday.

So I ha.....

Oh, the title... it's like a terrible pun. That's what we're going for here, right? I always was kinda under the assumption that any blogging was just a large, multi-faceted quest to create the world's worst pun, then translate it into every known language and somehow it destroys humor and the world can finally get on in a much more serious manner. Well, now that I think of it, that scenario is rather far-fetched and full of gaping holes... also, I don't think I described the "pun-ish" nature in the title anyways. Let's scoot on to it before I get too behind myself.

So, I have been in one of those highly introspective moods lately. Well, for the past few days... weeks... months, or so. I usually perform this highly personal task in one main way: I compare my life to that of the most popular reality TV stars and most heavily searched '80's sitcom stars on Wikipedia and see what can be learned by the stark, fundamental differences. Wait, I just read back over that sentence and I have no clue what it means. I wish I could, like, edit it, or even erase it, but this is not in my nature. I guess we'll just have to live with it, for now.

Oh yeah, back to the titular thang. So yeah. It seems I am starting to come to terms with myself that I am very bad at finishing things. I know, I know, How'd I thunk it. Well, shut up. Yeah... well at least give me a minute to go through a bit of my process here. So, I have had, and it seems to go back through most of my life, a tendency to leave things undone. In my younger days, it was only noticeable in my personal life, but as I grew older it became, and has become, more and more apparent in my more publicly seen persona. Actually, it has really gotten to the point were I am so aware and afraid of not finishing something, that I tend to start less and less things. Which would be great if I was an arsonist, but is not too great for a regular, normal guy. Or even me.

So, this begs the question, how do I deal with the actual problem of not finishing things.
Well, that has been another topic of intense, personal, internal debate (where I am quite good at dodging most of the questions). My best guess so far is this: when I was younger, I, as most young people tend to do, lived in a world were goals were set for you (in a fairly general sense of the word) and you achieved the goals to the best of your abilities. The gradation of one's performance in this determined certain opportunities to that person. As one gets older, however, the goal system, in general, becomes a much more arbitrarily defined process with way more personal input and definition. Some people thrive better in this system, some adapt well to it, and some people, as it would seem, can function perfectly fine in one and not have it translate to the other. Well, at least without a little help and guidance. I hope...

What it comes down to is this: I need to start finishing more things. I also need to not be afraid to start things that I then proceed to finish. Hopefully. Shiat, I'll at least give it a try. What could it hurt?

A commercial grabbed me...

Alright, so I am watching the post-prime time cartoons on my24 Milwaukee (WCGV) when a commercial for a local childcare company comes on. I guess it might be more proper to call it a nursery school. Or a Babysitting Prison... I'm not sure, I am not used to the terminology. All I know is that when I drive through some of the more, ummmmmm, how to put it properly... ethnically diverse neighborhoods in the fine borough of Milwaukee, there seem to be about, on average, 17 childcare facilities per block. I figure they must be some kind of drug fronts...
Anyways, I am getting entirely off the point here. The commercial was for a place by the name of Milwaukee School for the Arts... I think. It has been awhile now. I am typing and editing quite slowly tonight. So, what got me was that they had a song for the school set to the tune of "It's a Hard Knocks Life". Now, what kind of advertising genius would put a song that is essentially a song about orphans getting beaten in a commercial for a child care facility. I just don't get it. Do people get paid to do this shit? Wow. Just a quick one. I'm tired and must sleep now. Ciao, tutti..

A New Venue... not sure if it's necessary

Hello, Welcome to my new venue. I am writing some things down so that they perchance might be read. Wow, that sounds completely lame. I have that worry that a lot of the things I think are pretty much the lamest ideas in the world, but there doesn't seem to be any sort of contest to discover if this would in fact be true. Maybe there should be some kind of Olympics of lameness. God, I am too damn tired to actually write anything worthwhile at the moment. I just wanted to set up the site. I will seriously try again tomorrow... well, I can't promise to try, but I will try to try.