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a tune of sorts
Thursday, February 24 2000
Today Kim had an appointment at Pacific Beach's Mastodon Piercing Parlor. The plan was for her to get several new earring holes and a navel piercing. It's been a good ten years since navel piercings became shocking; in the early '00s, it's just another thing people either do or do not do, like getting a haircut. Jenna the German Girl has one, for example.
Kim wasn't even too sure she wanted to carry through on the plan once we'd eaten a belly full of spicy Thai food. Before the holes were installed, we walked to the low cliff overlooking the ocean to stand in the miserable chilly western winds and watch the waves. A brown pelican flew by followed closely by a seagull taking advantage of the pelican's draft. I've seen pelicans follow each other many times stretched out in long prehistoric chains, but this was the first time I'd ever seen a pelican followed by a non-pelican. Another oddity was the way pigeons were gliding around like kites on the strong ocean winds. I'd never seen pigeons glide before.
Kim was happy with her new topologic alterations. She's consistently impressed by the cleanliness and painlessness of the work done at Mastodon.
While we were in Pacific Beach, we saw a young man riding a long skateboard quickly down the sidewalk along Mission Blvd. This wasn't odd in and of itself; what was strange was his little dog balancing carefully at the front of the board, nervously watching the thunk-thunk-inducing sidewalk cracks whiz by.
While Kim was off at work, I spent some quality time with my four track, finally mastering a few techniques necessary to create songs. The key ingredient catalyzing today's success was a simple audio plug adapter that I bought today at a Radio Shack in Point Loma. Without that plug, I'd been differently-abled, unable to make my voice sound the way I wanted it to. And it's still not perfect; I find my singing voice tends to lapse into a slightly embarrassing GBVesque British accent (as in the case of Bob Pollard, this is partly the result of growing up listening to and singing along (with conviction) to plenty of early 70s British rock). It's also a result of relaxing my facial muscles as I sing, something that improves the range and power of my voice while eliminating nasal qualities. I noticed a long time ago that when I speak with relaxed facial muscles, my voice ends up sounding like that of a slightly intoxicated upper-crust British bloke.
Another discover concerns the use of the layering of simple tracks. If an extremely simple guitar line is laid over another simple guitar line, but the two voice differently on different beats, the result can be unexpectedly lush and complex. A final revelation for me was that some "music rules" can simply be discarded without anything terribly bad happening. For example, though the high and low guitar lines in today's composition are actually discordant with one another, putting them together still sounded okay (and, as an added bonus, just a little creepy).
In the evening, Kim was still at work and Kevin (the DBA at my erstwhile employer) came by to visit. His one-time girlfriend from a little over a year ago, Andrea, joined us a little later. [REDACTED] We sat around drinking and such and mostly talking about Kevin's workplace. Evidently, there's something of purge going on there, with a great number of people being fired before getting the chance to vest. A former colleague known only as "RAM Chief" wrote something about this in my forum, saying "even butchers stop once in a while to clean off the chopping block."
I played my latest four track recording for Andrea, asking her what she thought. She tried to guess who the musician was, saying it sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. When I said it was me, she didn't believe me until I brought out my guitar and played a few of the parts.
Download a 3 megabyte MP3 I recorded today with my four track. It's called "death, obscure."
Kim and I hanging out in the cold bluster blowing in off the Pacific Ocean in Pacific Beach.
Kim's new navel ring. In the background is Kim's driver's side door, which Kim patched with a sticker after an anxious Sophie clawed through the upholstery.
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