Get Real

I don't presume to understand each person's individual life-traumas, but that doesn't mean I'm unaffected by their experiences--in my current state of disrepair (partial-blindness, multiple-limb paralysis both due to the rapid onset of Multiple Sclerosis at age 37), I have trouble identifying with the "pettiness of the world"...but I do acknowledge that others are dealing with their own troubles...hence I'm NOT deaf to the voices of the world...just admittedly overwhelmed by them.

So don't interpret days-of-silence as anything but my dealing with things that seem to deserve my personal-attention...outside of MY stuff!

Rock-on, Brothers and Sisters.

;) mattergy

The Self-Observed Mouth

Every once in a while I see simple pictures from MY OWN RIDICULOUS POINT-OF-VIEW rather than the one(s?) intended by the artist.

One illustration that even caused me to confuse my own dental-office...It's not the illustrator's fault...clearly. But it caused me to make this pixel-for-pixel reverse-view image so that -I- could describe over the phone where the trouble was [I only wish I had been that clever...this was made for the sake of others who may also see things from their own ridiculous points-of-view]...






;) mattergy

The USB-Reverse-Voltage Killed the 4-, 8- and 16-bit Color on my Laptop

Obviously only if it has happened to YOU will this make sense.

This morning while my USB-phone was charging via the USB-port on my PC, I accidentally pressed the "connect-to-internet" button [ridiculously located in immediate proximity to the BACK/RESET button on my Motorola phone...]

Anyway, pressing that button seems to have killed ALL the 4-bit, 8-bit and 16-bit color on my ATI Radeon display...

Easily solved TEMPORARILY by switching my PC to use the True Color [32-bit color] display-option, but lower resolution bitmaps (including the OS alerts) appear distorted by masses of parallel lines.

But a really annoying problem for a laptop...AND of couse on a day where 20 milion tasks are at hand, this short-term solution [ultimately my HARDWARE will need replacement] is NOT what I wanted to discover at 7 A.M. PST )P

But such is life in an imperfect world -sigh-.

mattergy

ADDENDUM/CORRECTION
I believe that True Color is itself 24-bit encoding, but you need at least 32-bits to match OTHER SPECIFICATIONS...

The Drums of July

Being formerly only the bassist in bands I realized just today how EXPENSIVE it is to be a dedicated rock-drummer.

But although I've only now realized this truism about expense, I have appreciated and respected the power that solid-drums deliver to the music.

...So I guess I have benefited from dedicated drummers since I first started playing in bands [for which I am eternally thankful.]

The first thing to realize about drumming is that it's a sizable logistics-effort to take on...but DRUMS [and bass, oddly enough] are the power-base of any good band.

In my opinion a band without a dedicated drummer -isn't really a band at all-.

Remember, that no matter how small your playback-device is, the instruments used to produce BIG SOUND are both voluminous AND delicate.

Well-tuned drums exhaust a fair supply of DRUM-HEADS, DRUM-STICKS and human-joints [knees, elbows, etc.], so I'd expect drummers to exhaust lots of pain-killer, too.

Again, I'm acknowledging that being a drummer takes its toll...I was only ever the bass-player...I benefited from that big-sound immensely over the years.

So thanks you drummers...you know who you are!

;) mattergy

Mistaken Indemnity

I don't think I've hidden the fact that BEFORE M.S. I was a bit of a musician myself, as such I was counter-influenced by my fair-share of "Theo(s)" so developing MY OWN STYLE(T M) required some honest-Rockers' disdain for the Techno-Cheese to which my peers were addicted...which played at the same places as Morrissey was being Spun(T M) so I was peer-pressured into rejecting Morrissey's fairly voluminous collection of work...without having even heard it...

Even though the orchestrations are NOT classic-pieces, they are valid works [the adage God Help Us, Morrissey] I used earlier in this blog was written before I'd really listened to the guy's stuff (He's been composing since at least the early-1970s , so he's got a fairly extensive collection of stuff to ply through

I was just mad because his name showed up in my "subscription" station The Day Disco Died AGAINST MY WISHES...mis-prompting the whole service to miscast me into Emo and other music-as-fashion catagories.

Former Smiths musician Morrissey being openly-gay also misses the point of The Day Disco Died: that heterosexual men had to welcome women into the workplace NOT as "dumb housewives" or sex-objects, but as legitimate equals in the working world.

Anyway, sorry Morrissey....mine is not to judge. But you weren't part of the heterosexual-Rocker experience at that time...The Day Disco Died.

--mattergy

ADDENDUM 1:50 P.M. PST
I am but ONE American...I don't presuppose to know anything about countries I've never actually visited...a distinction that graces most of the countries in the world other than the U.S. so The Day Disco Died may not yet apply to your country. ;)

Revel in the Fleeting Clarity of Your Time

I must remind the young-folks of the 21st-Century that there was only the sparsest visual- and sound-clarity available to us (common) old-fogies of the MTV-generation and early-80s.

But the effect was equally-entertaining as anything made in the early 21st-Century...if not MORE entertaining.

Even for our aunts and uncles...often 30-years-our-senior(s).

The point is that things will never seem any better to YOU, no matter how much money you spend...trust me!

--mattergy