O_Snips asked me about my experiences working at a recording studio. I’m too lazy to search and what I’ve ‘blogged about it before, so forgive any overlap:

I worked at a place called Sugar Hill Sound in Houston, TX. It’s a beautiful place inside, with lots of black formica and gray carpet. Studio B, the big room, has iso booths that look like the patio at a Mexican restaurant.

Outside, it’s a dive. It’s a big corrugated building in a not-so-nice part of town with gunshots ringing in the distance.

The place was getting back on its feet when I started interning there. The owners had bought it from the legendary Huey Meaux, who maintained an office there even though the place was being managed by somewhere else. Soon after I left, Meaux would go on to be taken in for drug possession and child pornography, and would skip bail leading to a couple-month’s-worth of manhunt, until he finally turned himself in.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Meaux’ office was part of a really huge studio that had been partitioned off into smaller rooms, for storage and office space and so forth. The big studio was the first place the Houston Symphony ever recorded, back in the 50s. It’s a huge soundproof room.

I mentioned Studio B. It was built for Freddy Fender in the ’70s. Meaux got rich off Freddy, and needed the technology to keep the hits coming. It was a really amusing place to work, because it had (and probably still has) this lovely, brand-new Otari 24-track deck, a really nice console, and… two Scully 2-tracks. The Scullys were great, but they were ancient technology, from the 50s. Big glowing VU meters and if you pressed stop at the wrong time you’d stretch and break the tape.

Also hooked up to Studio B were some of my favorite things about the place: Actual, honest-to-goodness echo chambers. Two of them! Echo chambers are just little cement rooms with a speaker and some microphones in them. No one ever used them, since we had plenty of digital effects, but they were all set up and functional.

The other cool retro thing was the plate reverbs. Two of those, as well. They were about the size of the wall of a bedroom. The legend was that they were hoisted into the upstairs while it was being built, because they were so massive.

A plate reverb is like an echo chamber, only two-dimensional. It’s a plate of glass with a speaker-like device on one end, and pickups on the other. The sound reverberates through the glass just like it would a room. The plates got used more than the chambers, but the thrill of antiquity wears off quickly when you’re trying to record a jingle or hip-hop.

Studio A was about half the size of B. It had an ancient, ancient ANCIENT 16-channel mixer, and a 16-track tape deck. It was mainly used for purely utilitarian needs, such as shooting sound effects into a radio spot or something. All of it is completely obsolete now, thanks to ProTools and the like. Still kind of cool, however.

But. And this is a big deal. In Studio A, there’s a sweet spot for recording vocals. A very sweet spot. A very, very sweet spot, so sweet that it’s marked with a big formica star on the floor. Because right there, on that star, is where the Big Bopper sang into a microphone on numerous occasions. That’s what made Sugar Hill cool.

It’s is quite the unique place in Houston, because it’s actually historic. Most places in Houston get paved over, so there’s no real chance for history to take on any relevance. It’s cut down before that can happen.

And, again, you look at that star on the floor, and you look at Freddy Fender’s gold records on the walls, and you go through the big room where the symphony recorded, and you get to Huey Meaux’ office where there was porn and drugs. And you leave the building and dodge bullets and drive through poverty to the freeway that whisks you off to the suburbs.

Looking at the web site, I see that chief engineer Andy Bradley is working on a written and recorded history of the place. I hope that works out.

Yesterday I did the first tarot reading I’ve done for myself in a long time. It was great fun.

The way I look at the tarot is that it’s a way to tell a story. It’s like the pages of a book, presented in a random order. You have to make a story that imposes some kind of meaning onto it.

With this in mind, here’s how I do a reading:

I shuffle for a while, since shuffling is meditative. I pick a card, and figure out what it’s supposed to mean. And given what it means, I proceed to do something else with the deck, like maybe pick a card for what’s impeding and what’s helping. Or pick a card for the next chapter of the story. Or draw a shape out of cards and make up some metaphorical meaning for each part of the shape.

I’ll call it Tarot Jazz.

For instance, last night I had the three of wands as the first card. I interpreted this to be the three bottom chakras I’ve talked about in other ‘blogs. I use the Thoth deck, so the cards are abstract and psychedelic enough that it’s easy to disregard their traditional meanings.

I put a card to the left, the 5 of disks, which is titled ‘Worry.’ This is what’s impeding. I put a card to the right, the 9 of disks, which is titled ‘Gain.’ This is what’s helping. The message here: The same thing is impeding and assisting, and I need to figure out which of these two visions of my worldly existence I want to steer toward.

The most important thing, however, is that it occurred to me that the difference between Worry and Gain would be the 4 of disks (9 – 5 = 4). It’s called ‘Power.’

So here I have a card in the spread that isn’t in the spread. It’s a picture of a castle from above, with the four elements locked away in the four towers. There’s a wall and a moat, and a single bridge. There is a gate at each end of the bridge, and an escape door opposite the bridge.

This is telling me that boundaries and access are the most important things. My material world is bountiful, and the unseen thing, the thing that I can only arrive at through deduction, is that I have to be more active in its wise use, rather than its unwise waste.

The other thing, and this is the important part, is that what’s really at stake here isn’t my material wealth. It’s my three bottom chakras. It’s my sense of self, my standing in the world, and my creative abilities.

There were other cards, but they just amplified this notion of the connection between my physical, material wealth and health, and my productive output.

So today was organize the garage day. I made some progress, but it’s a monumental task. Here’s an example of what my landlord left behind: He’s a single man who lives alone, and he has three ironing boards, all seemingly new. There’s a tremendous redundancy to everything in this house. The bedroom is tiny and has a torchere, a floor lamp, and two lamps on the bedside table, in addition to the hanging light fixture.

These things clutter my existence, and I have to do something about it. The trick is how overwhelming it is.

The other aspect of this is that I let way too much information into my life. I watch too much TV, I read too many newspapers and magazines, I spend too much time reading usenet. Who has time to be a lazy slacker when you’ve got a schedule like that? And how can I not be affected by all those implications and intentions chipping away at my rootedness?

So I’m cutting back. I watch the things I know I’ll enjoy, and I don’t watch infomercials out of morbid curiosity anymore. I only read about half the usenet posts I used to, and then mostly so that I’ll have an excuse to say to myself how stupid I am for wasting my time with these people.

I’m sure I’ll come up with some way to fill the void(s).

I’ve mentioned Babylon 5 before. It’s a TV show that I really like. And did I mention that season 2 is being released on DVD *tomorrow,* and I sure would feel good if someone decided to surprise me with a copy?

Anyway. In an episode of Bab5, one of the aliens is eating with another alien from the same planet.

“Breen. You’ve managed to import breen from homeworld. How?”

“It .. isn’t actually breen.”

“But the smell, the taste…”

“It’s an Earth food. They are called Swedish meatballs. It’s a strange thing, but every sentient race has its own version of these Swedish meatballs. I suspect it’s one of those great universal mysteries which will either never get explained or which will drive you mad if you ever learned the truth.”


With this in mind, I wanted to point out that I just realized that every race on Earth has its own version of the tortilla, even the Norwegians. I suspect that this, also, would drive one mad if one knew the truth.

I was reading another ‘blog, this one by an aspie in California. This entry in particular.

I’ve had a similar experience, except that the night and the shadows flucuate between terrible and wonderous. Both at the same time, even, on occassion.

I have this memory of camping alone in Utah. I was driving to Yellowstone to work there, and I stayed a night on the eastern edge of Canyonlands, a truly, truly inspiring landscape.

I arrived at a remote, quiet campsite and pitched my tent next to the car. It was still light enough to climb around on some of the huge, smooth sandstone boulders sticking up out of the ground. The moon was full overhead, and looked huge even in the blue sky.

The sun set, and the temperature dropped quickly, but I was ready. A wind started whipping across the plain. After a short while, though, it mostly died down except for the occassional breeze.

The moon was full, but I swear I could see the milky way anyway. I was excited. I couldn’t sleep. I sat on the picnic table for a while.

Far off in the east (and it’s a kind of far you really can’t understand unless you’ve been to desert Utah), the stars were being obscured by blackness. I watched as the blackness slowly swallowed bits of the sky. I began to see flashes of light that lit the darkness in patches. I heard the faintest rumble of thunder, rising out of and then back into the stillness.

So the question became: What does this mean for me? Does it mean the storm is headed my direction? If I pack up my tent and sleep in the car, will I have been overreacting? Will I even be able to sleep?

I decided that if the thunder got loud enough, it would wake me up. The campsite was on top of a hill, with no threat of flash flood. I could pack up the tent pretty quickly; I could just shove it in the back of the car if I needed to.

I drank more water and zipped up the sleeping bag with me inside, and went to sleep far more quickly than I ever thought I could.

What woke me up wasn’t thunder. It was scratching sounds. Something very small was scratching at the door of the tent, by my feet. Hopefully it was on the outside.

I moved as slowly as I could to get my flashlight, but with the first shuffle of the sleeping bag the scratching stopped and I heard something scurry away. I switched positions, so my head was at the opening, and tried to get some more sleep.

While I was drifting off, the scratching started again, this time on the side of the tent. I made a sharp motion with my leg and hoped whatever it was would run away to where I could see it. And it did.

It was a tiny, nocturnal kangaroo rat. I was still feeling the effects of having been startled awake, so I thought of my campsite as belonging to me, and if only those stupid rodents wouldn’t go around waking people up.

And then I thought, no. This is their darkness. They live here. The scratching, in fact, is a signal that there’s no storm coming. They’re telling me it’s OK to go back to sleep.

I unzipped the tent to go pee. The night was clear and beautiful, and I found a nice bush to water by the light of the full moon. The storm was still rumbling far, far away.

My days and nights have been all screwed up and backwards of late.

I had an interesting experience today, in that I was dreaming about being in a recurring dream location doing something (the location recurrs, but not the rest of the dream, kind of like the set on a TV sitcom). For some reason I started screaming bloody murder, and it woke me up.

This was after 4 hours of sleep, at about 11am. I was in a low-blood-sugar, semi-nauseus, who the fuck woke me up at this hour kind of state.

It had been the doorbell. The second I realized this I became petrified, there under the blankets. It was as if I had discovered that there were burglars in the house.

I listened intently. No sound of anyone talking outside, no one walking around. No one knocking in case the bell was broken.

I was having an anxiety attack after 4 hours of sleep for my already-whacked circadian systems. I decided to peek out the bedroom window, which is next to the front door. But I couldn’t move the curtains, or They Would Know I Was There. But, I thought… My car is there in the driveway, and they know I have weird hours. Who knows I have weird hours? The neighbors. But maybe it’s not the neighbors..? Well, if it’s not a face I’ve ever seen before, I sure as hell don’t want to deal with it in this mental state.

Then it occurred to me that I had been screaming in my dream. Had I been screaming in the world, too? Had they rung the bell to maybe wake me up if I was dreaming, or to find out if someone was being murdered or something?

I imagined hearing screaming from a house, going to ring the doorbell, and the screaming stops. Were my neighbors waiting for me to answer the door and verify that I was having nightmares?

I peeked through a tiny gap in the curtains. I didn’t dare move them to get a good view. I couldn’t make any determinations from what I saw.

I went back to bed and sat there until I had some composure. About a half hour later I got dressed enough and went to see if someone had left a note on the door. No such. Haven’t heard from anyone for the rest of the day, either. Still a mystery. I don’t even know if I dreamed the doorbell, too.


I remember a few years ago, when my brother got married. I couldn’t go get fitted for a tux, because I insisted on wanting to do it alone. I put it off and put it off. Finally, with deadlines looming, my dad took me to the place and it all happened, no problem.

On the way out, I told my dad, with as much humor as I could mix in to my self-disgust, “I hate being nuts.” His response was an out-of-character bemused chuckle.

Now I’m pissed.

Here’s why.

In this article, ‘white house officials’ say that they weren’t lying about the WMD threat, though they did exaggerate. Which means they were lying.

They go on to say that 9/11 changed foreign policy to one of toppling Hussein and promoting democracy as a way to demonstrate a better way to terrorist Arabs and Islamists. Which, in addition to being a stupid idea, is also a lie, because the neoconservatives in the white house have been itching for an excuse to attack Iraq since 1998.

The public will buy this line, because the truth is too scary to think about.

Update: Fixed the link.

Speaking of other people’s ‘blogs, I’ve been reading Robert Fripp’s online diary off and on for a while.

Fripp is one of the founding members of King Crimson, and has been described as the ‘Mr. Spock of rock,’ which fits.

I got into Crimson about the time ‘Discipline’ was released. I read an interview with Fripp, and it was interesting, so I got the album. It was one of those Big Moments in my musical history.

Anyway. Fripp’s latest entry has to do with how to handle yourself in relation to the fantasies of others. It’s illuminating, but only in reflection and refraction, not by direct light. And that’s as it should be in a ‘blog.

Comedy:

This ‘blog, and President Bush’s ‘blog.

And: Dick Cheney’s ‘blog, which contains brilliant entries like this:

This has been my paradigm for communication with the POTUS: to convey the chief warmaking insights of the Norman Conquest through a metaphor more accessible to his elemental gestalt.

“Friday Night at Hodge’s Cafe”

He thinks he read it as a child.

So it serves well, working — as it does — on a number of levels.

It has to.

Pardon my French, but I’m up to my freakin’ aorta with The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It just can’t illuminate everything. I’ve lost three analysts on that very problem.

Bellevue Time.

So.

For our purposes, Hodge’s Cafe IS the Norman Conquest.

NOT the Crusades. Repeat: NOT the Crusades.

I should meme that every day.

I’ve been reminding the POTUS. “Sometimes he throws ice cream on the floor just to watch it ‘smoosh.’?

Smoosh!!! he’ll say. Smooooooossssssshhhh!

Focus on the duck, I tell him.

I like the duck, he says. The duck is crazy.

Stay with the duck. Imagine the consequences for the duck.

It doesn’t make sense, of course, but it engages the POTUS. Better than a sock toy. More depth. Like catnip in the Nyquil bong.

Smooth but…. stimulating.

The POTUS is simple, not stupid. (We’ll meme that again.)

The duck, I say. Focus. Focus on the duck.

It?s working. Between hits on the Nyquil bong, he has already signed most of the vital documents.

We are growing more robust every minute.

Hey, look: We can now turn anything into oil.

The process is called ‘thermal depolymerization.’ It puts organic material under pressures similar to those that turned organic material into crude oil under the earth’s crust. Solid waste goes in one end, light oil comes out the other. The system only uses 15 of 100 btus produced.

I’m happy.

In my last ‘blog, I mention that I wouldn’t mind learning how to kick ass. Tej responds saying: “if you do walk in, you will become addictted. Guarnteed… learning to kick ass is a drug.”

And of course it is. That’s why the US is in Iraq.

Seriously, though, that’s one of the reasons I feel more than a little motivation towards it. I want to understand violence in a context other than being bullied in junior high, and in a context other than watching as US troops kick ass in Iraq while chickenhawks cheer.

Watching ‘The Matrix’ last night got me thinking a lot about violence. For the clueless: It’s a very, VERY violent movie. It’s almost violence porn. It gets a thumbs-up from me, however, because it ultimately teaches that violence only works toward ignorant ends, within the means of blissful ignorance. Neo can stop bullets and do whatever the hell else he wants to; violence becomes irrelevant within the matrix. My favorite exchange is when Agent Smith explains that the humans didn’t buy into a happy blissful synthetic world, so they used the model of suffering and competition to keep them placated. A Zen master couldn’t have put it more succinctly.

At least, that’s my reading. The sequels will probably prove me wrong.

I recently had someone tell me that I seemed incapable of being an asshole. I like to think I have that ability, but I also suspect that it only ever happens by accident, not intention. I want to iron out what violence really means in my life, separate from righteous indignation and politics.

I also want to grow my bottom three chakras to a mutually-beneficial relationship with the others.

And what the hell else am I really doing anyway? I should go sit in on an Aikido class. It’s structured social. Rawk.