Lucas Bouncing

Posted in Family by Tom on Feb 26, 2010 | Comments (0)

New tune idea

Audra and I decided to move a couple tables around in the living room so I’d have a place to store my music gear. The basement is totally torn up right now so all of my equipment (minus the amps) is in the living room. I got home the other night and got everything hooked up and decided to give the new digs a test drive.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that Audra could hear my guitar in the next room. It wasn’t plugged in, but I guess I was doing enough noodling that the sound snuck through the wall. She woke up during this solo take.

Disclaimer: I know it’s not polished. This was a spur of the moment series of little riffs that I’ve been working on. Had this been an actual song, I would have written a part and actually rehearsed.

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Posted in Music by Tom on Feb 24, 2010 | Comments (0)

The thoughts behind language

I wrote this in back in 2008, but I thought I’d share again. That’s the advantage of having your own website

Ok–This concept has bugged me for a while and I was reminded of it the other day. An article came across my news reader and it brought back a bunch of thoughts on the subject.

The curse word ‘Battlestar Galactica’ created

The article basically describes the word “frak”, which you may have guessed is synonymous with the dreaded f-bomb. Examples of its use include “No frakkin’ way” and “motherfrakker”. I’m assuming that the k would be doubled in these instances so that the word wouldn’t rhyme with “rake” when read.

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert is quoted in the article as saying:

At first I thought ‘frak’ was too contrived and it bothered me to hear it.[...] Over time it merged in my mind with its coarser cousin and totally worked. The creators ingeniously found a way to make viewers curse in their own heads — you tend to translate the word — and yet the show is not profane.

I’ll pose my problem with this as a question. Why isn’t “frak” profane? Everyone who watches the show obviously knows its intended meaning. My grandmother used to do the same thing when I was a wee little lad and I wondered about it then. She would say “sugar” if she dropped something. Obviously, she meant “shit”. Even as a child I knew that.

So why use the euphemism? Your intended thought is well known. As Scott Adams stated, our minds substitute the profane word for the non-profane word almost seamlessly. If our minds do this, why waste the effort to try to cover it up? This exercise is silly. The so called bad words (which I try to keep to a minimum on this site for content filtering reasons) are just that–words.

Words by themselves aren’t inherently good or bad. They’re tools used to describe thoughts. George Carlin said it best–”There are no bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad intentions.”

The word “slope” for example means a deviation from vertical or horizontal or an inclined surface. The same word spoken by a Vietnam War veteran most likely has a different meaning. The word itself has little to do with the significance of the thought.

Ironically enough, I think that the use of proper terminology (particularly in matters of the human body) sounds more vulgar in some instances than the slang terms. For example, which one of these sounds more like questionable language?

1. I’ll be there in a little while. I have to defecate.
2. I’ll be back in a few. I gotta take a dump.

That’s another thing that bugs me. We can read “Everybody Poops” to little kids but then at some point as they get older the idea of cracking one off becomes vulgar. That’s a rant for another day, though.

Here’s a thought to end this tirade. What if we didn’t put so much emphasis on these so called bad words? What if as a result of that, they fell out of use as expletives. Has anyone ever thought that maybe the reason they’re used as expletives is because they’re supposedly shocking? Are they shocking because they’re bad words, or are they bad words because they’re shocking?

Think about that, bitches.

Posted in Rants by Tom on Feb 23, 2010 | Comments (0)

What’s This Post For?

Apparently Alter Bridge decided to get another singer, hired Scott Stapp, changed their name to Creed, and recorded a concert for Palladia some time in 2009. It aired tonight and I just had to watch.

I was a big Creed fan in college (I also liked Hootie back in high school so all of you haters can suck it) and learned how to play most of their songs on my yellow Ibanez. I lost interest when Scott Stapp went all crazy (inviting Fred Durst to a boxing match) and the band didn’t seem to be growing at all. Then there was all the controversy with Pearl Jam and Creed broke up.  The instrumentalist from Creed found another singer and formedAlter Bridge. While sounding similar to Creed, Alter Bridge seemed to grow past the Christian undertones and developed a heavier sound. Me rikey.

Well I’ve done a lttle research and found that Creed and Alter Bridge are both still on. Apparently the singers will take on other projects when they’re not on tour. I can’t wait to hear about that scheduling mixup. “Hey Scott–what are you doing backstage. Wait–who’s opening for us? Darius Rucker? We’re Creed tonight, aren’t we?”

Anyhoo, back to the story. I watched the entire show. The band was really tight and had a nice amount of energy. They’re using a second guitar player and that helped to fill out voids in the arrangements.

Speaking of voids, there was one area that didn’t need any additional filler. That would be the chunk of real estate reserved for Scott Stapp’s ego. I know that there are always going to be performers that believe they crap roses. That’s part of rock and roll. Look at the burned out geriatric version of Ozzy Osbourne. To this day he claims to be the Prince of Darkness. The difference is that even though Ozzy saunters about like a crippled T-Rex, he can still rock. Stapp, on the other hand, cannot.

The vocal performance was spotty at best. I’m not sure what he was doing with the shape of his mouth but the end result sounded like Don Corleone shouting through a rectum. It was really bad and definitely detracted from the rocking that the band put on. All in all, I give the show a B-.

Posted in Music by Tom on Feb 21, 2010 | Comments (0)

Mmmmmmmm.

My lovely wife gave me 4 awesome Sam Adams glasses for Valentine’s day. I’ve been itching to give them a test drive and tonight is the night. The glass might say Samuel Adams, but it’s filled with a Magic Hat Lucky Kat. Mmmmm.

Tasty beverages such as this really make me want to brew again. I may have to christen the Bayou burner I got for Christmas. Should be interesting considering there is still 18″ of snow on the ground.

Posted in Hobbies by admin on Feb 19, 2010 | Comments (0)