Gradiation

As my friend reflected to me yesterday (at least I think it was yesterday...), it's been two years now since I graduated from college. That means I'm entering my third year as a ronin...er, NEET. In other words, I'm a failure of a human being. Well, at least as far as society is concerned (and believe me, the feeling is mutual). So why is it so hard for me to "get a life"?

Supposedly, high school prepares you for college, and as far as I could tell, college prepares you for graduate school. So how do you get prepared for the real world? I would have gone to graduate school, but my aptitude for the sciences, which I had been training in, tapered off. I'm still not sure if it's simply a matter of losing interest, or if my mental faculties have in some way been compromised, but nowadays I don't even want to think about a math problem - and I used to enjoy them so much!

We could go into why this happened, but the reasons are many, and not very clear. Part of it has to do with grinding mindlessly through pages-long equations, with little perspective. Part of it has to do with the realization that studying science will not lead to finding the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. (And if you tell me the answer is forty-two, I'll smack you). And part of it has to do with meeting a girl so much smarter than me, that I figured if I was struggling through problems she could manage with ease, then there was no point in me being a scientist as long as people like her were around.

So I decided to focus on a more creative subject, where I could make contributions without being the best in the field. I turned to my hobby, playing guitar. I graduated college with no plans for the future ahead, except the vague idea that I was gonna learn to play well enough to get by. Maybe start a band, maybe join a band, but ultimately, hopefully, to play some gigs and make some money doing something I enjoy.

A year ago, I had resolved to complete my first real album of original compositions, but when the first year anniversary of my college graduation rolled around, I was far from finished writing and recording the material planned for the album. It was exciting at first, trying to record my songs, but it eventually became very dull working in the studio, and I completely lost interest in wrestling with trying to record a good track. I enjoy playing the guitar, but I don't even have the motivation to pick it up every day, which is really something I should do if I plan on being a guitarist. Put another check in the "failure" column.

The real problem here is my inability to interact with the world around me. Specifically, the human part. I feel woefully inept at wedging my way into the world, with no confidence to strike out on my own. And yet, I'm terribly fearful and generally clueless when it comes to reaching out for help. On the one hand, there seems to be a focus on independence - relying on one's own strengths to make it in the world and do what needs to be done. I do not have this quality. On the other hand, there's a concession for getting by "with a little help from my friends". Power of love and friendship, and all that. But I'm not good with people, and I don't have a support network. Think of all those tv shows and movies where the hero derives his strength from his friends to win the day. What about the lonely guy sitting in the alley? How can you expect him to be a hero?

Journal 015

Okay, now for the stuff I /meant/ to talk about in my journal entry last night...

I've gotten into the habit of briefly opening the window in the bathroom when I go in to take my shower, after getting out of bed every evening. The reason is so that I can see the landscape, in the light of day, since on my schedule, I very rarely get to see the outside world in daylight. It's great just to be able to actually see the world, instead of just darkness, and in an instant I can tell what the temperature is and what the weather is like for that day. The past week or so it's been pretty snowy, but last night it was unexpectedly mild (on a relative scale, of course). When I looked out the window today, before my shower, all the snow had been completely melted away. God, I can't wait for spring. As much as I love the snow, I want warmer weather already.

Oh, another nice thing about looking out that window, is that, because it's pretty small, you always get the same viewpoint on the world every day, and it's facing west, and by the time I get up, the sun is usually not too far above the horizon (depending on the season, of course), SOOOOO, it's cool to notice how the sun's position on the horizon, and in relation to specific trees and houses in the foreground, changes over the year, moving north in the spring, and south in the fall. That kind of practical astronomical sort of thing fascinates me, which isn't surprising, considering my interest in nature-based pagan spirituality.

Last night I watched a video of a live concert for a Japanese pop group, AKB48, which consists of a bunch of cute Japanese girls, most of which (I believe) are aged in the teens. I'm not gonna bother with an anthropological discussion of modern pop trends in Japan, so if you want some kind of explanation or something, have fun. My friend, who currently lives in Japan, sent me the video, and he's the one who introduced me to the group. Back when we were in college, he introduced me to a similar group, Morning Musume, and we watched a bunch of their videos, and I know I was pretty hooked for a bit. The basic appeal is cute girls dancing around in sexy costumes while singing happy songs. More or less. And although I still prefer the aesthetic of 'white' girls, I've learned over time to appreciate Asian beauty.

The AKB48 video was pretty good. The costumes were impressive. For the first few songs, they had layered outfits, and after each song, they'd instantly peel off the outer layer to reveal a different outfit underneath. It's quite a shocking effect, and it's amazing that they can pull it off; having costumes under costumes, and managing to make them all look fantastic. Then, throughout the show, different sets of girls come in with all kinds of different elaborate costumes. The number with the girls in skeleton dresses was incredibly adorable. I was a little disappointed that they did the song "Skirt, Hirari" in shorts, since one of the major appeals of the song (for me, anyway) is the way they sort of flip their skirt throughout the song. Even without skirts, they were still pretty hot, so I think I can forgive them. I also enjoyed "Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru", which is an amazing song which basically translates to "My School Uniform's Getting In The Way", and involves the girls singing lines like "take off my uniform", "I want to be loved more freely", and such. Personally, it's just more attractive than when some American slut does the same. Different cultural backdrop and whatnot. I'm a sucker for seifuku, anyway.

I guess most fans who get into these Japanese pop groups have a favorite girl (or maybe more than one). I have to admit, ever since the first AKB48 video I watched, there was one girl in particular that stood out from the crowd. Doing some quick research, I find that her name is Kojima Haruna. There aren't a lot of people in my life, the way things are now, and that means there aren't a lot of girls, either. As pathetic as it may sound, I've learned to love two-dimensional animated characters. But unlike some point-of-no-return otaku freaks (and I use that term endearingly), I haven't forsaken my love for three-dimensional girls...yet. Honestly, I'm not too worried about that, but I do like to sympathize with people who get obsessed with fictional characters, because, although there are lines that shouldn't be crossed, there are also certain levels to which we should have no fear of going. In the past, I've argued the merits of having affection for fictional characters, and what bugs me is people who say that there's absolutely no reason to waste emotion on an imaginary person. As far as I'm concerned, the person who says that either has absolutely no imagination, or empathy, or could do with a little less real-world popularity and attention - since he's probably hogging it all, keeping people like us from getting the attention we need.

Well, speaking of pop idols, I was at Wal-Mart last night, and seriously, you can't turn around without finding yourself face-to-face with some kind of Hannah Montana merchandise. It's really getting out of hand. Damn mainstream American pop aesthetic. Give me a cute Japanese chick any day of the week. I've noticed recently that Wal-Mart has been shipping in tasty bakery-style Pepperoni rolls, and it's always a treat having one of those, although sometimes there's less pepperoni than I'd like. I at least looked for a replacement bulb for my reading/heat lamp, but I didn't see the right kind. I probably have to go to some hardware store or something for that, and I don't see that happening any time soon...

Hm, I just remembered that I completely fell behind on my music log last night, and that I still need to catch up. Time has run out, and I'm still not 100% sure of this week's theme. I'm trying to plan ahead for the upcoming holidays. Themes for Easter, and the Vernal Equinox, and eventually Beltane, and all that. Is anybody even keeping up with the ZML? I don't wanna pester people and forcefully remind them to take a look, because that's not the kind of person I am, but I get the feeling that most of the time I'm only doing this for myself. And although I'm more or less okay with that, for the time being, I was hoping that maybe there'd be /some/ kind of discussion about it. I know I took down the comment form, because nobody was using it, but I recently added a link to a discussion on my personal message board, which has been out of use for so long. I figured it was the perfect solution, and I can't believe I didn't think of it before I went to the trouble to program a comment form that ended up being unnecessary.

I know it's a lot to ask people to bear with my specific taste in music, but I've had experience as a DJ, and I'd just like to think that there are people out there that not only respect my services, but are interested /enough/ to at least get involved. I don't mind if somebody thinks a song sucks here or there. And besides, if there's something specific you'd like to hear, I've always been open to suggestions. Granted, I'm still in the captain's seat, but I like to take care of my listeners, when reasonable, and it'd be a good way for our musical tastes to interact, and we may both learn something at the end of the day.

All I'm trying to say is, playing music for people isn't a one way street. But I'll admit, I'm also afraid of the kind of exposure I'd like to have. I think that's a common thread in my life.

Homeostasis and Transistasis

The force for stability, and the force for change. In Neon Genesis Evangelion, Dr. Akagi Ritsuko explains that these two forces are the basis of life. It's a simplistic explanation - I once used it to prove that stars were alive - but there's a certain poetry to it. Two opposing forces, in a continuous struggle, and the resulting chaos that ensues is what we experience as life. We find comfort in stability, yet we seek the thrill of change. To cater to only one or the other for too long is to tip the balance of life. Too much change, and we become wild and unpredictable, threatening to lose all control. Too much stability, and we stifle, threatening to forfeit our stake in this dynamic world. But as long as those two forces battle, and we can find a balance in between, we are in a position to continue enjoying life.

As for myself, I'm far more comfortable with stability. I like patterns and routines, because the familiarity is comforting. Unexpected surprises are a source of great anxiety, because I need time to warm up to things, and get to a level where I can deal with them. Yet, I also desire, even require, change every now and then. Change in scenery, change in activities, something to make me feel like I'm not living the same days over and over again. A great way I've discovered to introduce change in my life with a minimal amount of stress is to rearrange my room every so often. It doesn't really involve putting myself into unfamiliar circumstances which would cause a lot of stress, but it does allow me to change my perspective on my world, because every day I wake up in this seemingly new environment. It shuffles thoughts and creative energies around. And it's just plain exciting.

College was nice, because I had a chance to completely change rooms every year. But even that wasn't always enough. In my senior year, I remember changing my furniture around multiple times. For awhile I had the bed against the wall with the window. But in the winter, it got cold, so I moved the bed in, splitting the room in half, with my desk by the window. Later, I moved the bad back against the wall lengthwise, at the corner of the window, with my desk closer to the door. Earlier, in junior year, I remember quite a startling experience with a room rearrangement. I had originally set up the room in a way that sectioned off my half, which I liked, because it gave me extra privacy, but my roommate didn't like it, because it obstructed the flow of the room (or something). So one day, I come home from a long day of classes, and the furniture's been completely moved around - totally unexpectedly! It was like the Twilight Zone! I go back and forth on whether I like a room to be opened up or sectioned off, because they each have advantages.

Well, you should be able to tell that I've rearranged my blog a little bit. Namely, I added a third column. It's something I've been wanting to do for awhile, but it wasn't one of the default options, so I wasn't sure how I was gonna approach it. It just seemed like there was too much blank space on the page, and it would make more sense to move some of the "wall hangings" in the right column, into another column on the left, so that there's more activity, without having to scroll down, observing one "wall hanging" at a time, you know? So I finally did a search, since there are all kinds of modifications you can do to change the way your blog looks. I just wanted to simply add a third column. The first set of instructions I came to was way too complicated. (I know HTML, but I never really learned about styles and whatever else is on there, so I was a little lost). Luckily, I found a second set of instructions that was a lot easier for me to follow. Hopefully, the effect looks as good for you as it does for me. Let me know if something doesn't look right. And while you're at it, take a look at some of the new things I just hung up.

I didn't stop with my blog. I also ended up completely redesigning my room. I'd show you pictures, but my alkalines are dead, and I didn't charge up my rechargeables last night, since I wasn't expecting to use them. It's not necessarily finished, as these things take time - you gotta test certain arrangements out and sometimes certain ideas don't work out in practice. Of course, it's not completely rearranged, as there are plenty of things that are too much trouble to move (like my bed, my computer desk, the huge table in the corner, my desk desk, the TV dresser...basically all the major stuff...), but there are enough smaller things to move around to give the room a significant change of personality. This time, I really opened the room up, pushing things largely back towards the walls. It's nice to have a lot of open space to move in, instead of weaving through columns of junk to get from one end of the room to another. But that can be fun, too, sometimes.

I lost a lamp and gained a lamp. I stopped using a desk lamp a while back because the fluorescent bulb got wacky - basically turning into a random strobe. Actually, it was a really neat effect, when I turned it on and shut the rest of the lights off - a real Halloween setting. I considered saving the bulb for next fall, but I ended up inadvertently breaking it while trying to pull it out. I had a backup bulb sitting in my desk (for a long time), and I wanted to make sure it was just the bulb that was screwed up. It was. Now I have that lamp back on my computer desk (I have an identical lamp on my desk desk), which is good, because the heat/reading/really really bright and hot lamp's bulb seems to have just now gone out, so it's out of commission until I go and get a replacement bulb, which I hope happens soon, because it's a pretty important light for my room (mostly for reading, and partly for keeping warm).

More Fun Without Clothes

Today the weather was nice and warm, up into the 50's at least. It doesn't look like it'll last, even another day, but it was quite pleasurable to get even just a small taste of spring. I actually hadn't thought much about it, despite noticing the weather when we went out to dinner for yet another birthday celebration, but this evening, my brother came back, apparently from a walk, and informed me of the still-warm weather. It was still a bit early, but I went and checked it out. I was already undressed, and I just went out on the back porch, just outside the door, to gauge the temperature. There was a definite attractive feel to the spring-harbinging air, and it felt nice compared to the chill we've been having, but you know, it was still a bit chilly. The moon, heading towards full, was bright in the western sky, and the swatches of cloud were moving pretty quickly across the sky.

I went back in, then after awhile, I heard wind and rain. I checked again, and it was damp outside - probably better that I hadn't gone out for a walk earlier. The wind was pretty fierce for only a short moment, and I wanted to go right out, on the front porch, to experience it, but the motion-sensing light next door was flashing on and off - most likely due to the wind, but it was still too bad a sign for me to go right out. The light eventually stopped, which I take to mean that there's a decent chance somebody was up to shut it down. I waited a little bit, and it stayed dark, and then I just couldn't stay inside anymore. But I grabbed a dark blanket from my room to cover myself to be extra cautious. It's about the right size to cover me down to about my knees, when wrapped around my shoulders. It's quicker than putting on the ritual cloak, and it's also not as thick and doesn't cover as much, so it lets you feel a little bit more naked than having the huge ritual cloak wrapped around you. It's wooly, so it's pretty good for warmth, but also bad for generating my arch-nemesis, static electricity.

Anyway, I went out onto the porch, and things stayed pretty dark and quiet, so I was happy. My feet got wet right away, even just stepping onto the porch mat, but I was expecting that. I stood for awhile, taking in the atmosphere, as the wind and rain fluctuated, but generally stayed fairly calm. A couple times I stepped toward the edge of the porch, to the end of the overhang, and stuck my leg out to determine the rainfall, which I could hear, but was actually pretty light. I started getting ideas about going out into it, just for a moment. Definitely too cold for anything substantial, but looking at the few remaining patches of snow on the lawn that hadn't yet been disintegrated by the rain, I was possessed by the desire to step in one.

I've always wanted to dive into a snowdrift while naked, but as of yet I've been deterred by the thought of how cold that would be. This would at least be a small step in that direction. My feet were already pretty cold, but keeping them in the same spot on the porch mat kept them manageable. Stepping out toward the edge of the porch, the ground was colder. But I figured it wasn't too cold that I couldn't do it, even though the only snow patch large enough to step in completely was out and down the steps in the middle of the front yard, and then across the driveway, next to the basketball hoop. I knew that stepping into the snow would be really cold, but I judged that I could handle it.

A couple months ago, around Yule, I made a complete circuit around the house on a couple different nights, when the mood struck me, despite the cold. It was a chance to get outside, and going completely around the house made it significant, but it was quick enough that I could get back inside and warm up before I began to freeze. The one thing I remember most, though, is that with the ground as cold as it was (though without any snowfall), my feet got absolutely frigid by the time I made it all the way around the house. But in light of those experiences, I knew that I could handle this one - stepping into the snow.

My first instinct was to drop the blanket I had wrapped around me (well, hang it on the door knob perhaps, so it wouldn't get wet and dirty lying on the ground), so I could do it completely naked, but I was too cautious to do that. I didn't want it to get wet, but I figured the rainfall was light enough that it wouldn't be significant. So I went for it, with the blanket wrapped around me. I made the route out to the remaining snow patches, on the other side of the driveway. Stepping into the snow, it actually didn't feel too cold at first. I stomped around for a few seconds before the cold started to sink in - and it was cold! But not too cold that I couldn't keep my calm. So I considered myself victorious, and headed back to the porch. Now that my feet were freezing, I thought it was a good time to go in.

Back inside, I climbed up the steps, on my hands and knees, since I didn't really have anything to wipe my feet off with, other than the mat in front of the door. I crawled into the bathroom, and rinsed my feet off. One thing I've discovered from my experiences walking around barefoot outside, is that coming in and rinsing them off (especially with warm water when it's cold), feels great. In addition to the warmth, it makes them soft and smooth, which feels good on the carpet, just like when you come out of the shower.

To switch topics, anyone who really knew me in college knows that I used to play DDR a lot. I'm not gonna go into the whole history of that here - that'll probably turn up in one of my College Memories sometime in the future. But I will mention that I thought it was a pretty lame game, like most people, before I really got into it. Even after getting into it, there's still an inherent lameness factor, but the bottom line is, not only is it a fun game that you can play both alone and with friends, but, best of all, it's a great excuse to get exercise, in a thoroughly entertaining fashion. Although I do enjoy walking, it doesn't exactly happen everyday, and a lot less during the cold months. Although I may or may not have better instincts or base statistics than other people, the fact of the matter is, I'm not in very good shape. For the past two years, most of my days have consisted of me sitting at the computer. All. Day. Long.

Now, I'm not real concerned about losing weight. I wouldn't mind if it happened, but even now, I'd say I have healthy proportions, and I wouldn't go out of my way to get any thinner. I don't really care about muscles, either. Again, I wouldn't mind having more strength, but it's never been all that important to me, and I wouldn't go too far out of my way to bulk up (weight-lifting has never seemed all that attractive to me). The one thing I am concerned about is having a healthy heart. Having endurance. Being able to exert myself physically over a period of time without exhausting myself prematurely. It seems rather pointless right now, since I don't really do anything like that, except for walking, so it seems like I don't really *need* to be in better shape. But I like the idea of doing those sort of things, sport-like things, just for the sake of fun - because it makes you feel good. Kind of hard to do things like toss a ball around when you're on your own, I guess, but there are still things you can do without a team.

Anyway, I always come back to the idea of playing DDR to keep me in shape, since it's fun, it's something I can do by myself, and it doesn't matter what the weather's like, either. Of course, I have yet to commit myself to any kind of regular regimen. But you know, it keeps coming up in my mind. Part of the problem is that there is that lameness factor to playing DDR, making me feel silly at the thought of being caught playing it - which, really, is rather ridiculous. I happen to have some dance pads left over from my college days, which I think still work at least relatively well, if not perfectly. Pads can be a pain, since they always seem to be breaking down and responding wrong, which really throws off your game. But you know what? If you're just playing for exercise, it doesn't really matter if you use pads, because the important thing isn't to get all the notes right, but just to get yourself moving, and the game provides a pattern for you to follow. I guess the only other real potential problem is the fact that playing DDR involves jumping around a bit, and that can cause structural stress in the floors, as well as potentially cause a lot of noise, thumping around at night. But I think it's at least worth another try.

Staying within the overall topic of this blog entry, I'll obviously have to try playing DDR in the nude. Not that it would be the first time. Actually, there was a marginally-related incident that I feel kind of bad about, in hindsight. One day back in college, two of my friends were playing DDR in our dorm room. Instead of playing, I went out for a little bit. If I recall correctly, it was because the weather was nice, and I had already decided to go out with my guitar for a bit before the sun set. Although that could have been another day. But for whatever reason I left, I came back later, only to enter the room and discover to my surprise two guys practically in their underwear, dancing about, playing the game. They were obviously only trying to keep cool, but you can imagine my surprise. And I feel bad about it, because I was judging them then just the way I fear people might judge me now. But then again, context is an important factor with these sorts of things.

One other physical activity I've considered doing nude is practicing kendo. Certainly, they put on a lot of armor, and if you're actually sparring with someone, it would be immensely dangerous. But I mean just on my own, practicing forms and such. I'd have started doing it a long time ago, if it were something I could do in the privacy of my room. But alas, the confined quarters (even considering the size of my room), make swinging a sword around quite unreasonable. There's always the backyard, but the problem I've had so far with practicing kendo where someone might see me (even if dressed), is that, based on my anxiety issues, I don't feel confident about going out and swinging my sword around. I feel like I'd stick out, and people, if they saw me, would naturally focus their attention on me and maybe want to ask me questions and watch me practice, and then there would be tons of pressure on me to act like I know what I'm doing, you know? Regardless of whether the reaction is positive or negative, that kind of attention makes me uncomfortable. Even in the dead of night, when I'd love to be confident enough to go out and practice without even wearing clothes, when the weather's nice, I still can't shake those anxieties about the slim chance that someone might be awake, and they might glance out their window, and see me. And under those conditions, it'd be even worse, because swinging around a sword at night is generally suspicious, and doing so naked is even more alarming and questionable.

At any rate, I thought about finding something special to wear, that would let me blend in with the shadows better, giving me more confidence to get out there and practice. You know, something vaguely ninja-like. Skin-tight, black, covering the arms and legs. If it helps me get out there, it'd be great, but I don't know how great I feel about ordering a unitard from some dance company. But I don't want some expensive, pop culture ninja get-up, either. Just something simple and effective.

Anyway, just some things I've been thinking about.

How Did It Come To This?

Ten years ago, this was a relatively normal family. Two parents, three kids in school. And you know, it might sound arrogant, but I felt like I was the favored child in the family. Not because of how I felt about myself, but because of how I perceived others feeling about me. Compared to my brothers - and no offense to either of them - I was the genius, the smart kid who consistently got good grades. And in those days, grades are the sole determinant for future potential (LIES!). The way the formula's supposed to work is something like this: kids all go to college, graduate, start promising careers, find a wife, marry, start a family, the cycle continues, while the parents get used to their newfound freedom and as retirement age sets in, they learn to sit back and enjoy life and go after the dreams they may have forsaken in their hardworking youth.

Of course, the devil fools with the best laid plans. My mom desired freedom and independence, and so my parents split up right around the time when the oldest of us sons were getting ready to graduate high school and move on to college. Within a year of that turning point, my dad lost his job to down-sizing, and though I don't know what his plans were then, it's been years and he hasn't gone back to work, so for the time being, it seems like it was a forced early retirement. He keeps himself fairly busy holding down the old homestead, and spends a lot of time watching TV, which I know he enjoys, but there's a question, at least in my mind, of whether he'd have an interest in pursuing something else in life, while he still has the time and the health, if he didn't have the potential concerns about taking care of us kids that he wouldn't have if we didn't end up being such parasites. As for my mom, she seems to be doing pretty well for herself, maintaining a positive outlook, and working like a machine to get her own business off the ground.

As for us kids, at least one of us managed to hit the mark, mostly. My older brother has been working constantly since the age of, like, 14. He bought a very pretty, used Firebird while he was still in high school. After graduating college, he was immediately placed in a prestigious accounting firm, where he's been the past few years. He works a lot, but he makes a lot of money, and as far as I can tell, his future looks promising. So far he's chosen to live out of this, our dad's, house, for whatever reasons - there are plenty to choose - although I'm confident that he could afford to move out if he wanted to. He's got friends, too, and it seems like he's perfectly suited to living life. He might envy my lifestyle of effortless laziness without responsibility, but I envy his ability to deal with the world and get done the things that need to get done.

So what happened to me? I remember touring my dad through the physics building one day when he visited me on campus while I was enrolled at college. I showed him some of the posters on the walls in the halls, of various students' collaborative projects, and he was amazed at it all - all this mind-bending complicated science-stuff. Everybody was impressed, I was studying physics, I was gonna be the next Einstein, I was gonna redefine the laws of the Universe, I was gonna win the Nobel Prize, I was gonna go to space, I was gonna invent new technology. I was on the cutting edge of knowledge. Hell, I believed it myself, for awhile. But then I learned the reality of things, and certain events undermined even my ability to keep up with the pace I had set for myself. So I dropped out. I may have graduated college, but that doesn't change the fact that I dropped out of life.

On the other hand, my little brother has dropped out of college, but he still seems able to pursue his dreams, even if they're the runner-up dreams (Living The Plan B!). He's been making efforts to get a job, and here I sit, wasting away. It seems as if not one of us is really supposed to be here, like this, but that's the way things have turned out. I have dreams and desires, but I don't have the motivation or ability to do anything about them. I'm paralyzed. I'm living in a shelter, and I've lost the desire or ability to protect myself, out there.

What do I want? I want to move into an apartment somewhere - get a place to myself. I want to be in charge of providing for myself, getting my meals, paying my bills. But I'd need to have an income, and that means getting a job. I want to have a job. But any job I can imagine, doesn't feel like something I could do. It's all so strange and unfamiliar, and I'm terrified to go out there. I'm terrified to be on my own. I want to be on my own, and I want to experience that excitement. But at the same time, I'm terrified of the possibility of failing, and not knowing how to deal with it, whether I can figure out what to do to get what I need and want, and actually doing the things I know I need to do - because they scare me!

1) Get an apartment. What do I have to do? Look. Look where? Go around neighborhoods? Look in newspapers? Look online? What kind of place am I even looking for? How much can I afford to spend? What kind of things do I need? Where do I even want to be? It's too much, I don't know where to start, and even if it came down to contacting people and looking at places, and moving in, I don't think I could handle that. Too much uncertainty, too much unfamiliarity, too much fear. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

2) Get a job. What do I want to do? Should I force myself to do something I don't want to do? Then how do I pick a thing? I feel terrible getting a low-end job because I'm a freaking college graduate, but the higher-end jobs (including middle-end) are too intimidating and selective. Almost any job you can think of includes interacting with people, and that terrifies me. Even if it was a lonely job, I still can't put myself in a place where I'm being evaluated, judged to determine whether I'm fit for the spot. I don't feel like I'm what any part of society is looking for, and I have a hard time justifying who I am to a bunch of tight-necked squares. Why do I want this position? Truth is, I don't, I'm only applying for it because I need a job, badly. I don't wanna do it, I don't wanna be here, I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to talk to anyone else. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

I'm lost and I'm scared and I don't know what to do, and nothing's happening because I have this happy place that I can crawl into where I can forget about all of that stuff for awhile, and just simply exist. I understand the need to pull the rug out from under my feet, but there's nothing in the world that can make me do it, and I'm too afraid to let anyone else near it, because I'm terrified, scared to death, of standing on the naked floor. That's a silly metaphor for a serious problem. I'm confused and I don't know what to do. I've been taking small steps for two years, hoping that a convenient solution would present itself, but it hasn't, and I'm not equipped to do the things that need to be done to improve my condition. I want help, but I'm willfully isolated from any person who could help me, if such a person exists.

There's a conflict going on inside, between the two sides of me. There's the side that's ruled by fear, and the side that's ruled by desire, and the side that's ruled by fear has the upper hand. My desires demand recognition, but my fears refuse to acknowledge them.

Why can't I be making periodic posts about how great my life is going, about the interesting things I'm involved in at work, about the fun trips I go on with friends, about the great connection I have with my girlfriend? Why do I have to live in a state of periodic distress, between the periods of being comfortably numb with my life and who I am? Why do I have to be this person, and not someone else? I understand that everyone has problems, but why can't I be a person who's got the equipment to deal with his problems? Why did I have to be the person who doesn't have what it takes to handle his problems? Why did I have to be weak? How come in this overcrowded world it's so easy for me to avoid the people who might go out of their way to help me? How come more of those people don't exist, and how come they don't do a better job of finding the people that need them?

I heard there's this program in Japan, created to help hikikomori, where the parents call in and hire a Rental Sister to act like a concerned sister and do whatever it takes to get through to the hikikomori and encourage him to join a program and improve his life. I want a Rental Sister...but they'd probably be expensive, especially if I have to ship her from Japan, and I'd probably need a translator, too...

College Memories (2)

Initiation/Orientation

I remember sitting in the van, with everything packed up, driving out, up the street, away from the house I had lived in for 12 years or so, heading toward the interstate, unimaginably excited about the journey I was embarking on. My dad was at the wheel. We were listening to RRK, and whether by fate or irony, the song Point Of Know Return by Kansas played. I knew that I was making a huge step in my life, and that from here there'd be no turning back.

We listened to Neil Young's Decade on the trip up. I saw visions of demons and angels in my head, during the instrumental portions of Cowgirl In The Sand. When we arrived in Lewisburg, it was getting late. We checked into the hotel we were staying at overnight, before the big day, and then tried to drive in to get a glimpse of the campus. We made it to Market St., and when my dad asked the guy at La Casa De Pizza where the campus was, he said it was just another block or two in that direction. We were confused, as we didn't know the area too well, but we got some pizza and took it back to the hotel. By this time, it was full-on dark. I remember eating that pizza in the hotel room, watching some Conan The Barbarian movie on television for a little bit, then listening to the radio on my portable system, trying to find which stations were good in this town, before finally getting to sleep.

In the morning, I giddily prepared myself, and we headed towards campus. Our car was directed to the building I was to be living in - Larison Hall. As we arrived, and stopped the car in front of the building, we were immediately absorbed by a whirlwind of volunteer assistants who quite efficiently whisked all my luggage away and up to my room. I and my dad were informed that this was the chance for me to go in, get my room key from my RA, and check out my room - without my dad's assistance, a first chance at independence. We eventually met back at my room, and started to unpack some of the more important things.

I finally got to meet my would-be roommate, Brent. Ironically, he was from California, which is where my then-girlfriend had moved to attend college. He was a great guy, very friendly, although we weren't really the best match, since he was a total party guy/social butterfly. But for what it could have been, it was a pretty positive experience since I had never faced the prospect of living in close quarters with a stranger before.

I guess there were some events and things, but it came to a point where my dad was anxious to start the long trip home, and where I needed to start getting used to living on my own, away from parental guidance and protection. We parted ways in the middle of a thronging crowd assembled for some activities fair type gathering on the lawn next to the chapel, and I remember it being an incredibly bittersweet moment, filled simultaneously with fear and excitement, sadness, and vigor.

There was about a week of freshman orientation before actual classes began, where we could get used to living on campus, where to get food, become acquainted with our hall mates, attend supposedly mandatory (ha!) meetings about adapting to college life, and stuff like that. Basically, it was a lot like some kind of camp, except that we were living in buildings and not tents or huts. There were some incredibly lame festivities, where we were held captive on the field and forced to play embarrassing games with the rest of the freshman class, which really lowered my appreciation for the whole orientation program.

My hall had some pretty cool people. Of the two guys right across the hall from my room, one of them was from Pittsburgh, which was pretty cool. He was kind of a rough-and-tumble sporty type, though. Once, we got in trouble for playing the same song from each of our rooms, and adjusting the volume so that you could get a perfect equal balance from both sides by standing right in the middle of the hall between the two rooms. That was awesome. Down the hall, in the triple, there was "rock star Mike" (the Asian and the Mike that I was friends with in college would find irony in the fact that this particular Mike was Asian - and a guitarist! Premonitions?), who was a talented guitarist, and Pedro, another beginning guitarist like myself. Interestingly, we had three Laurens on our hall, and two Kates of some form. There was also a fascinating individual by the name of Whitney, who I got to know a little better later on (he spent a year backpacking in Europe, before entering college!). He started out studying Japanese right away, and though I had plans to take Japanese too as soon as I got the chance, he once told me never to take it because it was so challenging!

During one of the early festivities on campus, though it may have been after classes had started, there was a fleeting experience that burned a lasting image in my mind. I was walking through a crowd on the fields and walkways outside the upper entrance of the LC, tons of people hanging out and having a good time. Maybe there were some crafts, maybe there was some food being served. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day. Anyhow, and this image may have been idealized by my emotional reaction, but I recall seeing a beautiful girl in the grass, barefoot, with flowing blonde hair. It sparked in me a visceral connection to everything I loved about the idealism of the love and peace hippie generation, and though I didn't make any kind of specific connection to the girl at the time, I took it as a symbol of how beautiful and amazing this world was that I was just entering into! The possibilities were endless!

During those early days, I also met another person that would have a hand in shaping my experience of college life. I believe I first met Paul on the bench outside our advisor's office, waiting for our very first individual meetings with him. Paul was clearly much higher up on the social ladder than I, but we shared an interest in physics and classic rock music, as well as a passion for playing the guitar, so I like to think we were able to have a pretty meaningful acquaintanceship. In addition to my intense fandom of the band he later played in on and around campus, by his connection I was introduced to a lot of scenes that I never would have experienced otherwise. Not to say that all of those scenes were necessarily scenes that I wanted to be a part of, but even so, I'm grateful for getting to see all different sides of life, even if just for comparison.

One of the major developments of that first week of living on campus was the switch from rooming in a double to rooming in a single. My roommate Brent became friends with another guy a few doors down, who also came from California, and who lived in a single. Turns out this other guy was having doubts about attending Bucknell, and before the week was out, he arranged to withdraw and transfer to UCLA. Lucky for me, Brent was the first person to act on the vacancy. He moved into the single down the hall, leaving me in my room all to myself! Some people warned that the administration would find someone else to squeeze into my room in Brent's place, but no such thing ever happened. Besides, that room was pretty cramped for two people, anyway. But it was just right for one. The extra special bonus was that, since it was outfitted as a double, I got twice the furniture! So I had an extra set of shelves, twice the closet space, one desk for school work and one desk for my computer, and a double bed! It was fantastic! Truly a dream come true! I lofted both the beds, so as not to overcrowd the space in the room, and put my computer desk in the cave underneath. It was amazing! Shangri-La!!

Bedside Manners (or Raging River of Thought)

I don't know if it qualifies as insomnia, but I often have trouble getting to sleep. This is one of the main factors contributing to my desire to increase the length of a day by a few hours - believing that staying up longer will make it easier to finally fall asleep when the time comes, without sacrificing sleeping hours. (The other major factor is my hatred of being forced to wake up prematurely). Alternatively, I suspect that if I did more throughout the day - particularly more physical activities - I might be tired enough by the end of the day that I'd be able to fall asleep easier. Well, however it may by alleviated, the problem as I see it is related to the raging beast that is my mind. When I shut off the lights and climb into bed, the distractions of the physical world melt away, and my mind is free to explore. It runs off into patterns of thought that keep me awake, rather than allowing me to drift off to sleep. And the longer I lay in bed trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep, the more frustrating it gets. Usually, it eventually happens, but every once in awhile, my mind just refuses to shut off. And what's particularly annoying, is when I get that feeling that I need to document what I'm thinking about - like when I get a great idea about something, and I want to write it down before I forget it. It's annoying because on the one hand, I want to stay in bed and try to fall asleep, but on the other hand, I feel this urge to get up and stay up and pursue the idea.

On a related note, I also do a lot of thinking in the shower. In this case, I know that I'll be out and back in my room within the hour, so if I have any great ideas, I can just remember to write them down after I get out - unlike when I'm lying in bed, and I'm afraid I'll fall asleep and then I won't remember at all what I was thinking about before I drifted off. Still, for some things, I put a lot of importance on the exact wording of things, and oftentimes, if I don't capture that precise wording, the idea won't have nearly the impressive appeal to me as it originally had. This is a problem when I'm thinking about a topic of discussion, and I find a great way to articulate my stance. I want to preserve those words I used to frame it that way, but I can't very well write something down while I'm in the shower, and it just wouldn't be feasible to hop out of the shower everytime I think of something new. Sometimes I go to painstaking efforts to memorize exact phrasings of things while I'm in the shower, so that I can write them down after I get out. This is actually a great way to exercise my memory skills (something I've always prided myself on), but it is a lot of effort (usually more than I'm willing to expend on most issues), and one potential trouble is that if I take the time to memorize the first couple of sentences, it might actually stunt my thought process in terms of coming up with the next few sentences. So then I come up against a pretty interesting conundrum. Do I focus on memorizing what I have, making sure not to lose it, or do I let myself follow the thought through, knowing that I might very well engage myself in an enlightening inner monologue that I'll never be able to duplicate?

Well, if it hasn't sunk in yet, I was lying in bed trying to get to sleep, and I started thinking about these very issues, and I felt it would make a good entry for my blog. At first I juggled the value of getting up and going with it against that of staying in bed and hoping I could remember enough in the morning. Guess which side I ultimately allied with? I think those first two paragraphs were pretty good though, so right now I'm gonna say it was worth it. Although, in addition to talking about my sometimes frustrating thought patterns, I thought I'd also mention a few things about my bedside manners.

One thing that I think might be a question on certain people's minds (as it's been asked of me at least once), is what the hell do I do with my hair when I go to sleep? Because I've heard at least one tale of a person with long hair who woke up choking with it wrapped around the throat, and subsequently ran off and got the hair cut. Although that person must not have valued their long hair much to get it cut off so easily, it does bring up a concern. I've only had significantly long hair for a few years (let's say, long enough that it could choke me), but in college, I ended up getting into the habit of pulling my hair up to the top of my head, after laying down in bed, and tying it off with a hair tie thingy, then letting the hair hang over the top of the bed. That way, I can toss and turn back and forth with minimal tangling and whatnot, and I don't have to constantly be concerned about where my hair is, since it pretty much stays in one place. I don't know what other people do with their long hair, if they braid it or what, but this system has worked fine for me so far. I actually wish I knew more about hair stuff, because girls can do so many cool things that guys just never learn. It's like a secret art.

I like a soft, but pretty flat pillow. Those super-fluffy pillows can be really luxurious, and nice to lay on, but I have a hard time sleeping on one, because the pillow fluffs up all around your head, and that makes it hard to breathe clearly. Speaking of pillows, I happen to have a rather large mattress, and while I love to spread my body out, my pillow stays on one half (actually more like 3/4's), with the remaining quarter (the side of the bed away from the wall) hosting a stack of two really fluffy pillows, creating a kind of pillow wall that obstructs my immediate view of the area just beside the bed and the rest of the room, while I'm lying down in place. Why is this? One simple reason. After I had my sleep paralysis episode a year or so ago, I became very paranoid about an evil presence kneeling down beside my bed to watch me (which is exactly what happened during the episode), so just like you throw the covers over your head to protect yourself from the monsters in the dark of your room, I put those pillows there so I wouldn't have to be staring out into the darkness beside the bed, wondering if something might be there. Wow, that sounds so childish, but damn, if you've experienced what I've experienced, you'd understand.

As for covers, I have a nice stack of a bunch of comforters, and I use a varying percentage of that stack throughout the year. In the coldest winter months (like right now), I use most of them, to keep warm, which I guess is about 4-6 layers (I had to take off two of the layers to block off the window...). In the summer, I only use 1 layer, and it's always the same layer on bottom, which just happens to be particularly comfortable for me. Speaking of being comfortable, there's nothing more comfortable than sleeping nude, and the only time I don't is when I can't. But even now, in the cold winter, there's nothing a layer of clothing can do that an extra blanket can't do - and the blanket doesn't restrict you as much, or create as much static friction. Even in college, during the times when I shared a room, I devised a system where I'd use the basket, that I tied to my bedside to sit my alarm clock on, as a place to keep my shorts after taking them off under the cover of the blankets, so that I could slip them on again in the morning before climbing out of bed. I don't remember exactly when or exactly why I started sleeping nude, but I do remember a period of adjusting myself to it. I'm sure I didn't have any specific ideas about nudism back then, but I must have recognized the comfort and simple joy of it at the time. And that's something that I haven't forgotten.

Sometimes, during the summer, it's so hot that even using the one blanket is too much. But for the longest time I've had an inborn aversion to sleeping without any covers. Maybe it's a natural thing - defense mechanism or something - but I've always felt vulnerable without being covered - particularly the feet. Whether it's monsters or the cold or just the space, I feel uneasy climbing into bed without having anything to cover me. On the other hand, when it's just too hot to be covered, I've learned to make compromises - mostly by covering myself as little as possible, balancing the feeling of being exposed with the feeling of being overheated. I like the image that I get in a lot of anime/manga series of Japanese people sleeping with a wide but rather short (perhaps folded over) blanket covering only their midsection. I wonder what the story behind that is, if that's a Japanese custom, if there's some reasoning behind it or something. I've tried it, and it's fun just because of the association I make with characters from anime, but it only works when I'm really hot, and even then I have to gradually unfold the blanket to cover myself up more as I cool down.

Boy, isn't this interesting? I think that's all of what I thought I'd mention. I did promise something about bedside manners, didn't I? Luckily, I haven't really been forced to share a bed with anyone I didn't want to, as a result of crowding or whatever (there was that one time I opted to sleep on the floor rather than share a bed with another guy, if you remember). I have had a little experience sharing a bed with a girl, however. There are all kinds of emotional benefits, waking up next to a girl you love and all, and the physical closeness, which is all pretty obvious. There have been times when I've been pushed out of bed though - inadvertently, but no less frustrating. Ah, I just remembered something else - positions! No, not sexual positions! I mean sleeping positions.

I've always been a side sleeper. I lay on my back to relax, but never to fall asleep. I don't specifically have a favored side, as far as I know, except that lately I've been falling asleep on a particular side - but I suspect that has to do with facing away from the light leaking in through the window. As far as sleeping on my stomach, it's the oddest thing. I had a friend/roommate in college that always slept on his stomach. And it kind of scares me, because there are certain connections I do not want to have with this person - and anything related to sleeping is one of them - but I've never slept on my stomach before, yet, after having lived with him for awhile, I started doing it. I honestly can't explain it. And it's a habit that I still haven't been able to completely shake off. I also have this particular pattern I place my arms in that usually gets me the most comfortable, and it's something that I also happened upon during college. It's like a criss-cross, where I'll have one arm directed upward, over the head of the bed, and the other directed outward, away from my face - but with the arms crossed. I dunno, this is weird stuff, and I'm suddenly starting to wonder if it's even all that interesting, and most importantly, if it was really worth getting out of bed for. Maybe now I'll be tired enough to fall asleep. Still won't make me feel any better when it's time to get up though...

Grades (or Brains R 4 Zombies)

Well, damn, I was gonna go to bed at a decent time, but then I got a little distracted. I was thinking about how mercilessly ironic it is that, in school, I always got good grades with little effort, where my older brother had some trouble - and yet, now that we've both graduated from college, he's the one with the respectable job and the steady income, and I'm the one holed away from society, living off of my savings. I'll tell you this, grades may have *some* pull in this society, but they sure as hell don't tell you a damn thing about how well a person's gonna do in life. Intelligence is one thing, but there are so many other important factors that the education system (at least the one I went through) doesn't test or gauge - like charisma, work ethic, motivation, innovation, perseverity, etc.

Well, I've always been interested in math, and furthermore, I love organizing things, so I've worked out some basic statistics on the grades I received in college. I had/have plans to integrate them into a future [retrospective] version of the college page on my website (zharth.tenjou.net), but since I'm looking at them, and thinking about them, now, why not pull them out here?

Of course, there's a couple issues to confront when it comes to revealing grades. First of all, grades seem to be this highly secretive thing. And I can understand that. It's nobody's business how well you do in class unless you choose to let it be their business. Well, I don't have any particular problems at this point with letting people know how I performed in the classes I took. I mean, what difference does it make? Anyone who judges me significantly differently just because I got this or that a grade in school is probably not worth my time anyway. And besides, remember that whole truth thing I happen to value highly? Well, talking about this reveals truth, which makes me feel good, and I really can't see any significant benefits to keeping such things a secret.

Now, I have already told you that I've been able to get good grades fairly easily throughout my schooling experiences, so you might think I'm just out to brag about my high scores or something. Well, it may be true that I'd be less willing if I had worse grades (honestly, I dunno), but I can only assure you that my purpose here is merely to explore trends, show another piece of who I am, and give me something to talk about. So keep that in mind, and if ever you start to feel envious about my intellectual capabilities, just remind yourself that you are almost certainly making a much better life for yourself than I am right now. Besides, not all the grades I got in college are what I'd consider 'good'. If it was a line of straight A's, there wouldn't really be much to talk about it, would there?

The key thing I want to talk about is this quick graph I just worked out. There's also a more complete grade sheet which you can look at if you're inclined. Basically, if you wanted to know what grade I got in a class you know I took, or wanted to get an idea of what kind of classes I generally did better/worse in, or if you just want some specific data to make sense of the graph, you can find that info on the grade sheet. You can also see how many credits I took each semester, as well as the names of the instructors for the classes I took.

So take a look at the graph. Time for analysis. As you can see, I was off to a great start, with my GPA consistently increasing through the first three semesters. That trend died in the fourth semester - spring of my sophomore year. Looking at my specific grades, you can see that that may partly be attributed to increasingly difficult physics courses. Still, the drop wasn't too significant...yet.

Then came the Fall of '04 (Semester 5). Everything turned sour at that point. Two major culprits are Quantum and E+M, two classes I struggled with (and Quantum I absolutely downright despised!). But we don't want to make the mistake of assuming that the classes themselves were the only determinant for my performance. We must consider psychological factors as well. Having made my move over the previous summer, while staying on campus to work, only to be completely rejected (if subtly so) by the girl that turned my world upside down, I entered that fall into a deep depression, the darkest period of my life so far. That was when I turned my back on physics, and from then on it was an uphill battle to follow through on the promise I had already made (to myself or the administration or my parents or who, I don't know) to earn that physics degree. And it was a struggle.

As you can see, the following spring semester (Semester 6) was a remarkable rebound, considering the weight of the previous semester. But, as much as I wanted to keep my final GPA above 3.5, the next fall semester (Semester 7) pretty much made that impossible, thanks in large part to Thermo, a class that I despised almost as much as Quantum. I think it's utterly remarkable that my GPA for that term alone was even lower than that of the Fall of '04, and I'm trying to justify it in my mind. I had 4.5 credits in the earlier semester (Semester 5), and 3.5 in this one (Semester 7), which I feel has a likely connection (unfortunately, I don't have the formula on hand - wow, I just did my first math problem in probably two years, trying to figure it out...). On the other hand, that C- in Thermo doesn't help matters. The material wasn't particularly interesting to me, and it's likely I didn't put in as much effort as I maybe could have, because at that point, it wouldn't be surprising if I was starting to get tired of the whole charade.

You can see my final semester was a lot better, though still below average. I only had three credits (I could easily afford to do that), so it was laidback, but it was also my last semester, so I felt like working less than ever. I even quit whatever jobs I had had on campus so I could just take it easy. I would have done much better if I didn't have to take that capstone. On the one hand, it's the one I wanted, and it was fairly interesting. But I had long given up on doing any homework by that point...

(If you're looking at the grade sheet, you might notice that the upper level physics courses I did best in were the ones related to astronomy and relativity. Also of interest is the fact that, in my final semester, I did significantly better in metaphysics than I did in astrophysics - proof that I chose the wrong major? Just may be.)

In hindsight, it's really a sad state of affairs. You could scold me for giving up on physics, but it's not like I decided I didn't want to do physics anymore and just gave it up. I actually couldn't do it anymore, and so I had to say to myself, "this isn't working". Unfortunately, I haven't found anything else that works so far. I am proud of myself for sticking it out, though, as tough as it was. Even if my diploma means absolutely nothing to me now. Dropping (or failing) out of college just isn't my style, and I'm not so sure it would have been something I could have lived with. Still, what the hell do I do now? "But the training that he learned will get him nowhere fast." Aim my sights high, aim my sights low, the problem's still the same - I just can't seem to fire the gun.

Get A Haircut, You Dirty Hippie

Firstly, anyone who says that has no idea of the lengths to which I go in order to be and stay clean. But the issue I'd like to address here is my unconventionally long hair. Particularly for a guy. You rarely see a girl with hair as long as mine, and I don't think I've ever seen a guy with hair this long. So the obvious question is, why do I have such long hair?

The main reason is actually rather mundane. I've always been averse to getting a haircut. The whole situation is uncomfortable to me, having someone's attention focused exclusively on me for a period of time, that sort of thing. As a child, I would get a haircut fairly regularly simply because that's normal, and that's what my parents decided, and I had little to say over it. But I gradually managed to extend the time between haircuts, so that there would be long periods where I wouldn't get one, and my hair would grow out relatively long (in this case, meaning long enough to cover my face in the front) - this would be around high school days, I guess. Having hair that long was kind of cool, because I loved being able to hide my face behind my hair to avoid people, but it was also kind of liberating to get it cut short after a while. Ultimately, though, the act of getting a haircut just became too much of a bother to me, and somewhere around the time I got my senior picture, I gave up on it completely, and just let my hair grow out unhindered. I haven't taken or allowed a blade to be taken to it since.

So the primary reason for me is convenience. You might say that getting a haircut once a month is a lot easier than washing long hair everyday. Maybe you have a point, but for me, going out and getting a haircut is a lot harder than washing my hair everyday. I'm used to washing my hair and it really doesn't bother me. Going out and getting a haircut, on the other hand, would be traumatizing. That having been said, convenience is not the only reason I continue to have long hair to this day. Though it may have started that way, since growing my hair out, I've become very attached to it, and now there are other reasons for me to keep it.

Having long hair has a certain appeal. I like to challenge people's ideas about things, force them to think in new ways. By being a guy and having long hair, I force people to question their notions of what people can be like. I guess maybe, people who get piercings and visible tattoos, and wear weird fashions and such, might be doing it partly for that same reason. But it's also more than that. I actually like the long hair, for what it is. Part of that is because it connects me to two symbols that I hold respect for - hippies, and elves. Although a lot of the hippies I see in documentaries and rock festivals don't have hair quite as long as mine (especially the guys) - and aren't nearly as naked as I'd thought they would be - the long hair still taps into that whole social movement where the hippies wanted to challenge society's standards about how guys should wear their hair (among other things), and the image of freedom represented by letting your freak flag fly.

In addition to the hippies specifically, guys with longer hair than normal have always been a staple of certain sections of the music scene. The guy with long hair is a rocker. When Bob Seger sings, "most times you can't hear 'em talk, other times you can; the same old cliche, is that a woman or a man?", I know what that's like firsthand. And although I try to take it as a compliment, considering how I feel about girls, it's still pretty embarrassing to be mistaken for one. Even before I went super-long, when I was back in elementary school, I was at the pool with a friend once, and I remember hearing a kid scream out "mommy, that girl doesn't have a top on!" (Obviously, this would be way back at the age before girls started 'developing' significantly...). I'm happy that I can laugh about it now, but it was pretty uncomfortable at the time. But even so, my hair means too much to me to lose it for the sake of other people's expectations.

I mentioned elves above. Whereas hippies don't necessarily have hair as long as mine, especially on the guys, elves frequently have hair this long, and the guys just as often as the girls. I'm fascinated by elves. I feel a certain kinship with them. They are a natural race, living in closer communion with nature, and they are often described as being beautiful, wise, and knowing how to extract simple but profound pleasures from life - for example, in the form of song and dance. Anything that relates me to this race brings me closer to the ideal image of what I would like to be.

There's another reason that I treasure my long hair. A very important reason, that I've avoided thus far. I'll be blunt. There was a girl I [hardly] knew in college, with the longest, most beautiful golden locks, like something out of a fantasy. Her hair was probably a bit longer than mine is now, and a little more wavy, probably because she not infrequently wore it in a braid. She cut it in half or so, later on. There's a lot of troubling emotional nuances to the situation, but having my own hair as it is, partly serves as a connection to what I loved, and partly as a challenge to what I hated. If I cut it now, not only would I lose that connection, but I'd also lose the challenge...

And while we're talking about cutting, I'd like to take a moment to issue my stance on Locks of Love. I have absolutely nothing against it, and I think that what they're doing is great. However, I have been hounded by so many people, telling (not asking) me to donate my hair, that it can't help getting on my nerves. When somebody honestly compliments me on my hair, which happens a lot, I am genuinely pleased. However, when they then proceed to instruct me on getting rid of it for the sake of some charity, my enthusiasm wanes. And that's to say nothing of the people who mention it outright, before ever saying "wow, your hair is long", or "I like your hair", but rather come right up to me and say "you're donating that to Locks of Love, right?", as if it was a statement, and not a question. That really gets on my nerves. Just because it's a good thing, does everybody in the world who grows their hair out *have* to donate? I thought this was a free country, not a fascist dictatorship. Some people just *don't* have their priorities straight, and unfortunately, in my experiences, that reflects badly on Locks of Love. If you want my advice, tell the people not to be so Jehova's Witness about it. I mean, look at my hair, do you really think I've never heard of Locks of Love before? What exactly do you hope to gain by hounding and harvesting me? Certainly not my respect or friendship, I can guarantee you that. And not my patronism, either. So start thinking with your head and your heart, not with your [short] hair.

Journal 007

There have been times in my life where I've considered the value of writing a diary. Having the ability to look back in detail at the things that were happening to me on any given day in the past, and the thoughts that were running through my mind, is interesting, if not all that practical. However, I never had the discipline to force myself to write about my day regularly, as it's always seemed like a redundant effort. Still, with my dedication to this blog, it seems I now have a sufficient excuse (even if it's not daily).

Friday was another Open Stage night at the den. It was relatively uncrowded - in my opinion, likely due to the bitter cold. I still get crazy nervous reactions before performing, and I don't know if it's more about going out of the house and into a crowd of people, or if it's about the performing itself, as I've gotten fairly comfortable getting up and playing at the den (although the same cannot be said about any other venues). The symptoms are more physical than psychological, I think. I have a sensitive digestive system, and my sinuses seem to want to react as well, like as if I was allergic to people or social contact or something. Even when I sit down and write for this blog, and start talking about stuff in a context where I know other people will be reading it, I start sniffing and coughing and sipping water a lot more than when I'm doing other things. It's weird. (And it is indeed happening now, as expected).

Before the Open Stage, I was thinking about my "madness" act, and I was starting to come to the conclusion that it was getting old, in my mind, and I needed to do something to make it new and interesting. I'm thinking about maybe incorporating the bow I have, but I need to practice that a bit and see if I can make it interesting. At any rate, when my time came to perform, I tried to mix my repertoire up a bit, opening it in a different way, and trying to spend more time on the quiet, ambient portions, than on the loud, erratic portions. I think it was good. At the end of it, someone in the audience asked for an explanation, and I was like (to myself) "shit, what do I say?" So I made something up about syzygy and planets lining up and cosmic energy or something, and I think they bought it.

Afterwards the Primatives & Co. had pizza again, since the Indian eatery they wanted to eat at wasn't open late enough (at least I think that's what the problem was).

Saturday, I finally watched one of the two Crossroads Guitar Festivals I got over the holidays. Some really great stuff. Joe Walsh did an awesome extended blues intro to Funk #49, which surprised and impressed me. I like his introduction to Rocky Mountain Way - "if I knew I was gonna have to play this song for the rest of my life, I would've written something else." I liked the songs that were done which had multiple guitarists, where each guitarist was given a chance to solo - which happened a lot at the festival. Like when Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan, and B.B. King all took their turn on Rock Me Baby, and when each of the artists in Clapton's band soloed during a fierce and extended performance of Have You Ever Loved A Woman. Even though it's not really my scene, Steve Vai's performance was at least interesting - he's undoubtedly very talented at the instrument, but I see him more as a showman than a musician. Robert Cray's Time Makes Two was incredibly moving. I love songs that are performed like that, where the pain and sadness is palpable, and you could imagine the artist breaking down in tears just as easily as pouring out another verse or solo. Pretty much the exact opposite of Vai's act. Musically, Jonny Lang's act was alright, but the sheer effort he put into singing and playing was downright impressive. I felt like he was gonna have a stroke or something... I generally steer away from J.J. Cale's influence on Eric Clapton (Cale wrote Cocaine as well as After Midnight), because it's different from the blues material that I like to hear Eric Clapton play, but Cale's playing here was very interesting. Unique, and expressive. When James Taylor came on to do a couple songs, I was totally thinking, "this guy is such a chick musician" - like, you know how there are chick flicks? Well, James Taylor is one of the 'chick flicks' of musicians, if that makes any sense to you. Always good to see Santana play - I envy him for his wicked sustain. I don't know how he does it. It was fun to see Clapton play some Santana-esque licks in homage during the song - I think it's so interesting to hear guitarists playing in the style of other guitarists - not so much when they're stealing an artist's technique, but more as a form of musical impression. John Mayer was expectedly disappointing - I don't even know why he was involved in the festival. Even during his interview, he kept saying these weird things that made absolutely no sense at all. It's like, what? What are you talking about, and who cares? ZZ Top's closing act was pretty cool.

I started reading Living Fully With Shyness And Social Anxiety. There are different sections dedicated to different aspects of the condition. I've read the part on the body - physical symptoms. It's not as important to me as I think the part on the mind will be, since at this stage in my life, I've pretty much extracted myself from most of the situations that give me physical anxiety, and I'm more concerned with battling the psychological ideas that keep me from even going out there, into the world. It was still interesting though. Particularly the part about Shy Bladder Syndrome - the condition of being unable to 'vacate' in the presence of others, for psychological, rather than physiological, reasons. I admit it's something I have trouble with at times. Using public restrooms designed for more than one person at a time is pretty stressful for me, and I try to avoid it whenever possible, sometimes to adverse effect. Especially in college, taking a leak could at times become a rather paralyzing obstacle, when the hall restroom was anything less than empty. The real trouble of it is that you go in there, and if you could get it out right away, then that would be great. But the longer you wait for it to come out, the longer you've been in there, and the more concerned you get at people wondering what you've been doing in there, and then the anxiety kicks in at full power, and you want to hide and pretend like you're not even there - there's no chance for you to either do your business *or* leave. And then you end up waiting, sometimes quite a long time, until you have the privacy necessary to settle your affair.

I find that general situation is a problem with a lot of things - the idea of waiting until the moment's ripe, but the longer you wait, the more awkward it would be to act, and since you weren't prepared to act in the first place, you can't do it now, and then time just goes on and on and it gets worse and worse until you completely avoid what needs to be done. Like answering emails. Sometimes I'll get an email, and I'll be concerned about what to say and how it will be received, so I wait and think about it. And then the longer I postpone sending the reply, the more awkward it would be to send the reply that late. Arg. It happens with all kinds of things. Like telling someone about something. Like telling my dad about Burning Man, that's probably gonna turn out the same way. I'm afraid to tell him about it because I don't know what his reaction will be, and I'm afraid it will be less than 100% positive, which scares me - and even if it's like 90% positive, I'm still too scared about that 10%. So I wait for a good time to drop the issue, and it never comes, and the closer the event gets, the more worried I get about the added stress of mentioning it when it's so close, and the possible flak I'd get for not mentioning it earlier...and it's a vicious cycle of fear and anxiety and avoidance and it just doesn't have a positive outcome. So the best solution - and I can tell myself this, but it doesn't always mean that I can accomplish it - is to take care of these things right away. Cause none of the flak or negative reaction or any of that really matters - if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen - and the important thing is to get the deed done. The only purpose the fear serves is to prevent the deed from getting done, and once it's done, the fear is pointless. So the best way to get rid of the fear is to just do it. Don't think and don't worry; just do. But obviously that's easier said than done. If I didn't have a problem just doing it in the first place, then I wouldn't have a problem.

In the book, the author talks about what it takes for different people to overcome their struggles. For some people, all the information in the book won't be enough, and for others, just a single point of knowledge is enough to change their whole perspective. Well, after having read that, I'm surprised that I myself have been rather blown away by one minor little detail, that has changed my perspective at least a little bit. It's probably not everything, but it could at least be something. Anyhow, the detail was as follows. Having social anxiety means being overly sensitive to one's reception by other people. You get nervous over the smallest, unimportant details, thinking that the tiniest thing will cause a person to dislike you - and that's the worst possible outcome imaginable. But if you look at the coin from the other side, you see that this sensitivity to people's reactions can be considered a positive trait. You're nervous because you *want* to please people. So why is that a bad thing? Well, it's obviously a problem, but that's because you're making it out to be a problem. But it can also be an advantage, if you look at it from a positive perspective. If I'm nervous about meeting someone for the first time, I can let my anxiety at being accepted cripple me, or I can let my knowledge that I'm only nervous because I want to be accepted allow me to make a conscious effort at being accepted. And instead of using all that energy to monitor my own actions, and to worry about how other people might perceive them, I can use that energy to determine other people's moods, and then react to them to try and make other people feel more comfortable. I almost feel like it's a superpower, which can easily become a burden dragging me down, but if I learn how to use it properly, it could become an invaluable asset allowing me to help people, as well as myself. I think that's an amazing epiphany, and while I still have a long way to go in changing my life, I think it's an important step. Even just the idea, that the book encourages, that being shy is not something to be ashamed of, is empowering. I've alway been afraid to admit to people that I'm shy, despite it being obvious, because I've always looked at it as something to be ashamed of, something that people would naturally tease you about. But it's not necessarily a bad thing. It can be just as much a good thing. It's just an aspect of my personality, of who I am, and it's only as positive or negative as I allow myself to make it. Mindless positive encouragement has never impressed me, but show me facts and reasoning that support a more positive outlook, and well, it just might work...

On Sunday, the fam went out to eat in celebration of my dad's birthday. We went to a fancy Chinese restaurant nearby. The reasoning, as I understand it, is that my dad hasn't had a good plate of General Tso's Chicken in quite a while. He, and the rest of us, I think, were pleased with our meal. I hadn't had Chinese since college, I don't think. And it inevitably reminds me of college. Ordering Chinese with my friends on the hall. Ah, good times. I had my usual - Kung Pao Chicken. It's got a kick, but it's never been too spicy for me to handle (I'd say I'm a middle-weight on the scale of spice-lovers - if light-weights can't handle spice, and heavy-weights love the extremes). The only downside to Kung Pao is that it's one of the dishes with the higher veggie content. But I guess forcing myself to eat the veggies, which aren't too bad, is good for me, and it's worth it to get to the chicken. I also had some delicious wonton soup, and even more delicious pot stickers. A good Chinese meal like that has got to go up near the top of my list of best meals ever. I wish I could find a 24 hour Chinese buffet somewhere in the area. I'm a little disappointed they didn't provide chopsticks (though nobody asked), though it seemed like they might have been a bit too fancy for chopsticks (if that makes any sense). If it wasn't easier to just grab a fork out of the kitchen drawer, I'd definitely want to eat with chopsticks more often in general, no matter what kind of meals. Chopsticks are cool.

I read an article a while back about the changing music industry, and how albums are mixed differently today than they were decades ago - particularly, that they have less dynamic range and are louder overall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war). It's something I noticed when I got Silvertide's album Show & Tell years ago - it's mixed much louder than the average CD I have (considering that my collection consists mostly of albums from the 60's and 70's - although I've heard that some newer remasters or greatest hits collections are also victims of this 'louder is better' policy). But especially now, listening to most of my collection on a shuffled playlist, the difference between the modern and classic albums is striking. Earlier, I had to turn the volume up a bit to hear Jefferson Airplane's Comin' Back To Me - a mellow, acoustic piece - and then after the song, a track from the Stones new album A Bigger Bang came on and it was freaking loud! All the other modern albums I have are loud, too - including Aerosmith's Honkin' On Bobo, Johnny Winter's I'm A Bluesman, and American Minor, in addition to the ones listed above. It wouldn't bother me so much if the volume level was consistent, but the sudden switch from quiet to loud can be rather jarring at times.

My friend linked me to The RPM Challenge (http://www.rpmchallenge.com/) the other day. I hadn't heard of it, but apparently it's a general challenge to musicians to record an album during the shortest month of the year (February). It just so happens that February starts in a few days. I think this would be a positive experience, considering how much I avoid recording. It should be a nice kick in the pants, to force me to produce *something*, in the form of a final version. The idea is for everything to be recorded in February, although whether or not you *write* the songs in February is up to you. That having been said, I think it's truer to the challenge if you write the stuff, or at least develop most of it, within the month. So I've been partly thinking about what I'd like to do for my album, and partly avoiding thinking about it before February. Heh. But I think I wanna do a post-rock type thing. One long track that goes for 35-45 minutes, or however long it turns out to be. I want it to be a little more structured than the improvisation I do every other week at the Open Stage, because that would kind of be cheating for the challenge. So - and this is still a preliminary possible idea - I'm thinking about improvising for at least 35-45 minutes every night once February starts up, then after a little while, starting to work out specific sections. Ultimately, it's not gonna be transcribed note for note or anything, but I wanna have a clear idea of which parts go where, and what they'll sound like in general. And then we'll see what kind of things I come up with to make it interesting along the way. As much as I like the *idea* of studio wizardry, and using multiple tracks for different instrument parts, I think ultimately I'm gonna default toward just recording a single guitar, and just getting whatever I can play, like a live-in-the-studio kind of deal. I may or may not decide to add some words. We'll see, I might even change my mind about the whole thing, but so far, that's my idea, and the closer February gets, the more of a hassle changing my mind will become - though ultimately, whatever I come up with throughout the month, I imagine will be fair game. So it should be interesting, I think, and encouraging for me.

And that brings up another issue I wanted to mention. The fact that, the most important step toward accomplishing something, is committing to it. Because if you're not committed to it, then every little doubt you have becomes a potential reason to quit and back out. But if you've already committed, then your first instinct is to overcome those doubts and problems and barriers, rather than abandoning the project. And an insecure person such as myself will probably (I'm hoping) be surprised and impressed with how much he is capable of. So, I think, in order to accomplish amazing things, I have to commit to them first, or else they'll never get done. Like Burning Man. There are so many if's involved, that if I wasn't committed, I'd spend all my time worrying about it and not preparing myself for it. But having bought my tickets and committed to it, I don't care how much trouble or effort it is, I'm gonna do everything in my power to make it happen. It's like, getting into the mindframe that it's already been determined that it's gonna happen, and the only thing you can do is prepare for it. Whereas, if you weren't committed, then you can still fall back on the possibility of it not happening. And that becomes a crutch. And then it never happens. I think that maybe this could be good advice for other people, too. The most important step toward accomplishing something is committing yourself to it. Just don't be stupid, and make sure it's something you want to accomplish in the first place. And if it is, then once you commit to it, you'll be surprised at your ability to make it happen.

You know, I often think I won't have enough to say about something to make a good blog entry out of it, then when I finally get around to sitting down and writing stuff out, it turns out I have more than enough...

Musical Discoveries

Inspired by a post by Satanic Thoreau, which characteristically turned out to be way fucking longer than I was expecting, I've decided to discuss where I discovered some of my favorite musical artists.

Classic Rock (Popular)

Most of the classic rock artists I'm into I discovered from a combination of my parents' listening habits as I was being raised (more of a subconscious inspiration), and the stuff I heard on RRK, which was (alas, no longer) the classic rock station in this area when I first *consciously* started recognizing music and acquiring a taste for it (around the end of my high school years). But here are a few specific stories:

Led Zeppelin

Stairway To Heaven was one of the first songs that I really got into in a big way. During the first semester of my senior year in high school, I spent a lot of time at home after school sitting in the dark and listening to RRK. I was "earning my chops" as a listener, in terms of getting to know all the most popular classic rock tracks (at least on big name radio, anyway). But everytime Stairway To Heaven came on - which was relatively frequently - I went into a total trance. It was practically a spiritual experience. The magic of the song, and the power and emotion of the solo. Once, a little later, after acquiring a girlfriend, I pulled the car into the driveway when Stairway came on. She was anxious to get inside, so she shut the radio off - cutting off my reverie. I was pissed.

As far as the rest of Zep's catalog, in addition to what RRK played, they did a Top 50 Albums countdown over Thanksgiving weekend that year. I got introduced to a lot of good albums on that countdown (as opposed to just songs), and I actually used it as a guide for writing up my Christmas list, since before then I didn't really know what albums were good. The albums on that countdown that made the biggest impression on me were Zep's.

Another formulating experience, if I haven't mentioned it already, was the weekend with the ZoSocar. One weekend that December, my brother 'traded' cars with me for the weekend, because he wanted to take the van up to Canada. So I got to drive his white Firebird. It was a sweet ride. He left Zep's fourth album in the CD player, so naturally, driving the car meant listening to the album. It was an amazing experience, that I am sure only increased the magic of that album.

Pink Floyd

I discovered Pink Floyd pretty much the same way as Led Zeppelin, though there wasn't necessarily one song that stood out for me as much as Stairway To Heaven did. But I do remember one Floyd-related incident from my childhood. I was in some way familiar with Dark Side of the Moon, because I remember I would sometimes beg my mom to put it on so I could listen to my favorite part, which was the ambient portion at the very beginning of the song Time. Floyd was probably the band I was most consciously aware of during the early years. In the discovery period, during the end of my high school years, I attached myself to Pink Floyd because they seemed a bit more sophisticated than the average rock band, and also because their music had a certain emotion to it - something a bit more introspective and atmospheric - which attracted me. I remember driving back from the mall one day, by myself, and Hey You came on the radio, and I thought back on my experiences, since I was approaching graduation, and I just had this feeling that Pink Floyd had some underlying connection to me.

The Doors

Something about The Doors reminds me of our family vacations to Deep Creek Lake in my childhood. It probably has a lot to do with hearing them a lot during those vacations. But it might also have to do with a very important experience that has stuck in my memory all these years. We were just coming off the lake as a storm broke out. While our relatives were tying up the boat, my brothers and I ran ahead to the cottages for cover. The doors were locked and nobody answered. We ran along the road from our parents' cottage to our grandparents' cottage, and the van drove right up to us, coming back from shopping. They opened the door and we climbed in out of the rain, and Riders on the Storm was playing on the CD player. Perfect.

The Who

The Who was actually the first rock concert I ever went to. But it wasn't me, it was my brother, that suggested it to my dad in the first place. I wanted to get a better idea of who The Who was - in essence, which of the songs I knew from the radio was actually The Who. I heard Who Are You one day, and I remember coming to the realization that "this is The Who". So I've kind of always felt a little behind the curve in my appreciation for The Who, but there's something very unique about the band, particularly Pete Townshend's approach to playing the guitar, that I've come to appreciate more and more over the years.

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones is my dad's favorite band, so my awareness of them is pretty self-explanatory. They don't really have a searing guitar god - Keith Richards has always been more of the rhythm/song-writing type - so I've always spent less attention on them than other bands. But there's no doubt that they have a solid groove, as well as being just downright cool. And listening to them a lot, and learning about them on the side, from my dad's influence, I've learned to appreciate them more and more.

Neil Young

My first encounter with Neil Young was the song Cinnamon Girl which came on every once in awhile on the radio. I remember separating it in my mind from Brown-Eyed Girl, since the title was similar in structure. But between the two, Cinnamon Girl was more interesting because it was electric and had a rock edge. Another time, in a rare occurence, I heard Down By The River playing on the radio, and I was captivated by the electric jamming and groovy atmosphere. Yet another time, I heard Like A Hurricane, and I wasn't sure it was Neil Young, but I had a pretty good idea that it was, because I could hear the stylistic similarities to Down By The River. I tried to look it up, but kept getting Rock You Like A Hurricane, which obviously wasn't right.

I knew my dad had some Neil Young in his collection, so I looked through it one night, and discovered the album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, with the song Down By The River - bingo! Listening to the album, I heard Cowgirl in the Sand for the very first time, and it blew me away. I loved it, but I didn't become totally obsessed with the song until my freshman year in college, sitting in the window, watching the students pass by down below, listening to the song on repeat for hours, waiting for just a glimpse of heaven.

Other Classic Rock/Blues

Robin Trower and Ten Years After

I'm lumping these two together only because I 'discovered' them simultaneously. Ten Years After has more or less been my dad's second favorite band, and my introduction to them during the Woodstock film (Alvin Lee totally smoking on the guitar throughout I'm Going Home) whetted my appetite for more. As for Robin Trower, I heard about him from an online classic rock forum, and decided he was worth checking out. So sometime during my college days, I ordered a TYA album and a Trower album. When they arrived, I took them to the library to listen to while doing some homework (I'm thinking this must have been sophomore year). I was entranced by Trower, and TYA blew me away. One of the TYA songs, You Give Me Loving, actually sounded familiar to me. It was bizarre, because I know I hadn't consciously heard the song before, but the riff must have been burned into my brain subconsciously from listening to TYA a lot during childhood, as I'm sure I did.

Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac

My first introduction to Peter Green was waking up halfway in the middle of the night, with the radio still playing, and hearing the song Oh Well, including the full acoustic portion. It mesmerized me, and I made a point to jot down the name of the song and the band, that the DJ announced after it ended, on a strip of paper so I would remember it the next morning. I woke up and looked at the piece of paper, and told myself that there was no way that song was by Fleetwood Mac, the band that did the Rumours album. So I shrugged it off for the time being.

I don't recall how Peter Green re-entered my consciousness, but I was curious, perhaps still wondering about that Oh Well song, so I went and bought the BBC Sessions featuring not just Fleetwood Mac, but Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. I was sold instantly, after listening to it. Peter Green, with his heart-rending soulful blues licks, and his melancholic sensibilities, immediately became one of my favorite artists of all time. He's an amazing musician, and the very personal songs he sings, I feel like it could have been me that wrote those songs. There's a deep connection there.

Michael Bloomfield

I came upon Michael Bloomfield in a roundabout way. It's pretty ironic, actually. One day, jumping into (or maybe just before getting out of) the car at Guitar Center, I heard on the radio - a rare occurrence, indeed - the version of Season of the Witch which turned out to be by Al Kooper and Stephen Stills. Not at first, but this gradually led me to the Super Session album, from which the track comes, which features some of Bloomfield's best playing. The session was conceived for just that purpose, and Stills' contribution came only after Bloomfield skipped out halfway through the proceedings. So by chance, I was drawn to Super Session by one of the non-Bloomfield tracks!

And then there was the Monterey Pop Festival DVD. Bloomfield plays on it with a band called Electric Flag. But what caught my attention even more, was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band's performance on Driftin' and Driftin'. Once again, I just barely missed Bloomfield, because shortly before Monterey, he had quit the Butterfield Blues Band to form Electric Flag! Still, I got interested in the Butterfield Blues Band, and bought the anthology, half of which features Bloomfield on guitar. So from both this and Super Session, I came to discover, in a roundabout fashion, the genius of Michael Bloomfield, forgotten blues virtuoso guitar god of the sixties (and to a decidedly lesser extent, the seventies).

Other Genres

Joe Bonamassa (Modern Blues Rock)

I don't recall exactly how I came across Grooveyard Records, but when I did, I realized that here was a potential treasure trove of modern music that could appeal to my guitar-driven blues-influenced rock sensibilities. I downloaded all of the sample tracks from the various albums they were offering, and I listened to them, paring them down to the very best four. Then, I ordered the albums those best tracks were from. This is how I discovered Lance Lopez, also. One of those first tracks was A New Day Yesterday from Joe Bonamassa's live album of that title. I got the album and I've been a dedicated fan ever since. He's my favorite modern guitarist.

Shannon Curfman (Modern Blues Rock)

One day during my senior year in college, I was sitting at my desk in my room, reading from a hometown mag I had just got in the mail. I scanned through it for anything interest-catching. Well, in the live performances section of the magazine, there was an article about an upcoming performance by a young female blues rocker. My interest was piqued. When I read that she had recorded a blues album at age 15, I was fascinated. I couldn't get home to see her perform that time, but I bought her album and got a chance to see her next time 'round.

Silvertide (Modern Classic-style Rock)

When Silvertide were just getting popular over in Philly, there was a Philly-based member on an online Zeppelin forum I frequented at the time. He was advertising the band, but I pretty much ignored them at first. Finally, this member sent me an audio track or two, and I was really impressed. I also visited the band's website and heard a few more songs, and I was hooked. I got a chance to see the band live as an opening act, and I eagerly anticipated their first album release. Afterward, I even hoofed it out across the stateline to see them perform for a future live DVD release, which never happened. Unfortunately, the band faded into the void behind lies of a second album. Nobody knows if they will ever resurface, but at this time, it looks highly doubtful. Ah well, they were good while they lasted.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (Post-Rock)

My initial foray into the post-rock and, more generally, the ambient and atmospheric music genres, came out of my discovery of the band Godspeed You! Black Emperor. And that occurred while initially watching zombie horror flick 28 Days Later. Despite their anti-publicity stance, Godspeed allowed one of their songs to be used in the movie - and to breathtaking effect. It certainly made an impression on me. Not only did I fashion the main riff of the first "original" song I wrote on guitar after the riff in that song, but I tracked the song down (which doesn't appear on the film soundtrack, by the way), and I've been a fan of the band ever since. The post-apocalyptic soundscapes that journey from very loud to very quiet sections entrances me.